Somebody in my neighbourhood leaves peanuts out for the squirrels. I know because I find single, whole peanuts everywhere - by the lake, under the neighbour’s shrubs, and once, buried shallow, found when I dug a hole for a tulip bulb.
I heard that squirrels forget where they have buried most of their food for the winter and that is why they are so frantic about collecting it – they need to make sure there’s enough so that 20% of whatever they’ve hidden is sufficient. It also means that they plant trees sometimes. I love that squirrels are inadvertent gardeners, accidentally ensuring a new food source for future generations of squirrels.
They’re badly hidden – the peanuts – for the most part. They’re a bit like the contempt of a lover who is nearly ready to leave in that way. I once took a guy I was dating to a Steve Poltz show at The Carleton. Poltz is a folk singer, and he tells story after ridiculous story, softly touching his shoulder length hair before playing a song, some of which make me want to cry.
During the show, the guy I was dating sat back in his bar stool with his arms crossed, frowning. I kept looking back at him, concerned. “Are you having fun?”
“Why do you keep asking me that? Just relax.” But he never did say he was having fun.
In the couple of weeks leading up to the show he had started talking to me about another woman. I don’t think he was aware he was doing it. When we drove home from The Carleton after the show, he asked me, “if you had a car, what kind of a car would you get?” and I said I wasn’t sure. Then he said that the other woman drives a Volkswagen Golf. “I always wanted one of those,” I said. He asked what colour. I said, “black.” “Hers is white,” he said. A badly hidden peanut.
A few days later, at brunch, he was annoyed by everything that I said. I ordered eggs benedict. It made him mad. On our walk back to his place from the restaurant I told him he didn’t like me anymore. He rolled his eyes at me and asked if this was about the other woman. I said, “kind of, but not really, I think. You do like her, though.”
He said, “and how can you tell that?” and I said, “because you used to like me, so I know what it looks like when you like someone.”
I walked myself home. For a week straight, he begged me to come back to him, and a friend of a friend said, “one week of texts and calls probably doesn’t mean much. Wait him out. Let’s see what he’s got.” But I didn’t do that. I told him, ok, and invited him over while I was watching a nature documentary. We had sad and confusing sex. He broke up with me two days later.
This is a piece of evidence I can pull out as an exhibit to show to a jury of my peers that I am not really loveable, not long term at least. I have squirrelled it away – it’s one of the peanuts I have that helps to sustain that idea. I am two-dimensionally lovable. I am lovable on paper, I am lovable when laid flat, when pliable. But the fleshy reality of me, with a thinking brain and in need of reassurance is not lovable.
This is why people need therapy. So that they can slowly show someone the 20% of peanuts they’ve managed to hold on to and that person can say, “you know, those peanuts are really not so different from the other peanuts I have seen. It’s ok. Everyone’s a little nuts.”
Comments