I have a squirrel. Or should I say I feed a squirrel, or maybe a few, I cannot tell. They land singularly (squirrels are very territorial) on my balcony and I have, I admit, given myself to their immediate cuteness and plaintive eyes imploring another fist full of nuts. I place the items in an outer corner of the porch and watch from a distance. And when the animal is done — something that happens quickly in a frenzy of gnawing and tossing — the squirrel on my balcony starts begging for more. It comes close to my brown leather slippers, thinking them another animal or maybe another squirrel and looks up at me from its haunches and that is when I see them — those teeth. Suddenly the dancing squirrel with a soft chinchilla tail and two doe eyes becomes a rat with protruding front teeth, a busy rat nose with little greedy claws poised to scratch, grab and run.
I can’t unsee it, this rat squirrel. I know it is ready to come at me with a sense of entitlement, ripping and biting its way to another hand out. For now I give it those extra mealy mounds and watch peacefully as it plunders this treasure with peaceful gusto rather than dragging off morsels into cracks in the garden. But I know it is only a matter of time when the squirrel will come for me. It might be a moment that I relax and leave the door open and suddenly see a wisp of grey brown fur whip past the corner of my eye. Or it might be a lunch interrupted with an unexpected plop on the patio table or a bite on my ankle. You see, the squirrel always wins.
On the news this morning, reports vacillate from a horrific scene unfolding in Ukraine as forces under Russia’s strong-man president permeate and plunder what there is to be had in Kyiv. There is nothing cute about this man, though he may think otherwise. He is there for the taking and with more than two knifelike front teeth. When will it stop, the people, the pundits, the leaders ask? The squirrel is already in the house and it will take more than a handful of nuts to get him out.
The other story on offer on NPR this morning is one about a 500-pound black bear. His name is Hank the Tank and he is taking over a neighborhood in a California, breaking into garages first and then into kitchens and helping himself to the sweet stuff first. Surprised residents wake up to this specter but can do little until Hank has had his fill and heads out to some other cucina. You should have made your garage stronger, say watchers as this story unfolds. Shooting the bear is out of the question. It will only rise up and rampage.
We know what happens when we poke a bear. But what happens when the bear pokes us? The bear goes over the mountain to see what he can see. And the bear, be it a Soviet strongman, a whacked out squirrel or a quarter ton beast, just keeps on going until it is stopped by something bigger … or gets bored.
I have tried to talk to my squirrel, whichever one it may be, telling it to be off now as I have no more nuts to give. Sometimes it scurries back into the trees, satiated or cowed. Other times it hangs around the balcony looking for more and then I have to go inside. I watch it rail at me through my kitchen door window, remonstrating in squirrel talk about how it knows where I live and is coming for me. Still, I know I am the bigger force here and i ignore him. We eventually get back into a certain normalcy where I bring nuts and it gnaws and runs.
Hank the Tank will require more than a basket and an adieu. He has become accustomed to people fleeing upon his presence and he is king of the kitchen for as long as he needs to be. Plans call for a forced removal of the bear from this neighborhood habitat to a more controlled environment. You see, fear of humans is not in his DNA.
As for Russia, such a bear may not be so easily removed or contained. Ukraine is one big kitchen and the bear is hungry. What we don’t know: is the bear going over the mountain to see what he can see, poking at the edges of borders, frontiers, civility, rules of geopolitical decorum just to see what happens and only because he can? Or is this bear a new breed of fearless beast bent on emptying all the kitchens and taking over the town, no curiosity needed? Can we tame this bear with the usual tools, fighting back bigger, showing him who’s boss and affixing collar and chain? Or maybe we just let him fatten and retreat, however long that may take, and count again as he roams once more. You see, fear of bears is in our DNA. Erase that fear and we are all beasts.
I put out more nuts for my squirrel. He is learning that it need not fear me and anxiously dances at my feet and lunges for my hand full of good stuff. He is quickly becoming comfortable with humans and will likely become more aggressive in its wanting the more I give what it wants. Still, I cannot stop feeding him for some far away notion that one day this squirrel will be my friend. I need to believe in this bridging of our species into a certain bonding. But I know the minute a let my hand rest there and allow the rodent to eat from my palm I will get bitten.
February 2022
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