I Miss You When I Blink: Essays(47)

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In his book The Inner Lives of Animals: Love, Grief, and Compassion, the German forest ranger Peter Wohlleben proves himself to be a kindred spirit. He believes animals have souls. Not just the animals with cute, furry faces, like deer and goats, but the less cuddly ones, too: ravens, caterpillars, and ticks. I found it a compelling read, but anyone who finds it a bit twee would probably raise their eyebrows even higher at his prior book, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate. In that one, Wohlleben envisions trees in a forest as “friends” and “families” who share root systems and adjust their branches to make sure their neighbors are getting plenty of sunlight. He posits that trees can get scared and have memories and that they talk to one another through electric signals sent via the “Wood Wide Web.”

It’s an anthropomorphized view, certainly, but everything he describes has at least some basis in scientific fact. Acacia trees, for example, warn other nearby trees when grazing giraffes come around. The trees give off a gas that other trees can sense, prompting those trees to produce a substance in their leaves that makes them less desirable to snacking wildlife. Perhaps it’s a stretch to say that this is proof that trees feel fear. But Wohlleben writes that when he speaks of trees in this way, people’s eyes light up. He has translated the nonhuman parts of our environment into terms humans relate to, by making those things seem more like humans themselves.

Talking about animals and plants this way makes us feel less alone as living creatures, too. It’s soothing, isn’t it, to think of trees loving their parents, caring for their neighbors, and raising their babies? We all want the same things: to survive, to grow, not to be left behind.

I know I’m not the only one who thinks like this. If I were, animal videos wouldn’t go viral like they do. At the time of this writing, Batzilla the Bat, the Facebook page of a bat sanctuary in Australia—where I have never been but whose online presence I follow religiously—has nearly three hundred thousand followers. These people, including me, follow along to find out who’s new in the sanctuary and how they’re doing. The people who run the Facebook page give all the bats names and stories:

“Rescued a couple of weeks ago after being found flapping around in the middle of the road, Mr. Parfrey was in deep trouble, but following bed rest and time in care, he was joyfully released back to his home camp this afternoon.”

When I watch a video of a baby bat being swaddled in a washcloth or having his face wiped down with a Q-tip, it is not because I want to be wrapped in a washcloth and have my face swabbed down (whoa, claustrophobia), but because I feel for that bat. He is not alone, and I am not alone. There’s comfort in that.

When I get lost in the imagined thoughts of a cow flying over a ravine, I am taking that comfort: Look, we all get scared. We all look around at the world these days and wonder what the fuck. Just as there are many things about humans that cows cannot understand, such as helicopters and artificial flight, I suspect there’s a lot about their lives that escapes our comprehension as well. We’re all a little confused about each other most of the time. That’s probably why instead of curbing my animal-drawing habit when I grew up, I drew more and more the older I got. Is it weird that a full-grown woman published a whole book of cartoon birds experiencing botched social interactions, existential dread, and petty grievances? Or does it make perfect sense? The latter, I say.



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So yes, ghost of Nora Ephron, when fall comes and the world turns cold and inhospitable, I cry. Because everything in nature decays. And if there’s humanity in nature, well then, there’s nature in humanity as well. If everything dies, then everyone dies, and that means my family and my friends and me, and guess who else? Nora Ephron, that’s who. You’re not even here to call me an asshole, Nora. We never even met, and now you’re gone. Just like the leaves in November.



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I think she would have understood, I really do.





This Is Not My Cat


“Come out slowly and show yourself,” I said into the darkness. I crouched on the floor, holding up the white cotton dust ruffle with one hand and squinting into the dark cavern under the bed. My nostrils and lungs registered the presence of fur, but my eyes detected nothing. The black cat, hiding motionless, did not want to be found, but it was my job to feed him. I needed him to give up his antisocial ways and accept a dish of Fancy Feast, but I also didn’t want him to come bolting out like a hell-monster and scratch off my face. My understanding of feline behavior was founded on very little. I’d been allergic to cats all my life, but I suspected—based on legends, internet memes, and that one pesky neighbor years ago—that all cats were pricks.

“Fine, then. I’m going to have some Savory Salmon Feast.” I could wait him out. There was no rush. In the three weeks that lay ahead of me in this house-sitting gig, he’d have to get hungry eventually. I went into the kitchen and surveyed my own stash of groceries, lined up on the butcher-block counter: a can of almonds, a bunch of bananas, two cases of lemon-flavored fizzy water, a bag of Mint Milano cookies, a box of Triscuits, and a tub of pimiento cheese. All the food groups, plus a bottle of anti-depressants and some Claritin for the cat allergies.

I don’t cook when I’m on my own. I graze. It’s one of the small measures of tenderness I grant myself, the removal of all pressure to feed and water fellow humans. The only creature other than myself I had to keep alive that summer was the cat. He came with the house.