Keeping A Small Sense of Wonder

When I took my dog for his evening walk yesterday, I paused and looked up.  A squirrel was sitting on one of the thin branches towards the top of a tree, nibbling on something he held in his paws.  I watched him for a second and I thought about how uninteresting squirrels had become to me.  But why?  If I saw a monkey in one of the Minnesota maples I would be ecstatic.  But what’s the difference between a monkey and a squirrel when you get right down to it?  They’re both small furry mammals with long tails that skitter around in the tree branches.  They both climb and eat and run and shit.  So, why don’t I care a lick about the squirrel?

It’s because I see it every day.  It’s because there are about five million of them in Minneapolis and five hundred of them around my block.  They cross in front of my car when I’m driving and clamber up trees when I’m walking my dog.  They are prolific.  They are not special.

But they are to my dog.  He treats squirrels exactly how he treated monkeys when we lived in Panama: with fervent attention and unabashed excitement.

And then I thought, “I should learn something from that…”

I am surrounded by amazing friends and supportive family members.  I often take them for granted.  I make excuses for why I can’t attend this party or that coffee date.  I assume they will be there for me when I need them…

As I watched the squirrel (and my dog drooled over it), I began to appreciate squirrels in a small way.  I began to see them as amazing little creatures with superb balance and climbing skills–creatures who jump from tree to tree without a second thought.  And I began to think about them as survivors, carving out a spot for themselves amongst humans in an unnatural, urban environment.

They are incredible, really.  And so are many things in my life that I take for granted.  My pumping lungs.  My warm bed on a cold, spring night.  The dotted yellow line that keeps cars from crashing into me head-on.  The fact that I can look at a cluster of lines and curves and see words.

One of the things that truly makes an artist is the ability to look at mundane, common things and portray them in extraordinary ways.  Tom Robbins breathed life into a plate, a spoon, and an old sock in Skinny Legs and All.  John Updike made the life of washed-up basketball player seem tragically beautiful and unique in Rabbit Run.  As a writer, you don’t have to invent the wheel, you simply have to turn it or spin it or toss it in a way that’s never been done before.  The same is true for painters or musicians.  One of my favorite paintings is of the most ordinary things imaginable: trees, hills, sunshine.  It took the eyes of Van Gogh to see these things in a unique way:

Van Gogh didn’t just see trees and sunshine.  He saw texture and color and life.  He saw movement and emotion.

My hope is that I will never lose my fascination with the world.  My hope is that I will always maintain a small sense of wonder and think about the magic of squirrels and maple trees.