Subject: The Friend of my Enemy, The Friend of my Friend
Five years of enmity stand between me and the holly tree on the South side of our house. Its sharply pointed leaves nestle in with the garden plants, demanding blood when all I want to do is take an hour out of my workday to do some weeding. Anyway, today I’m trying to establish a truce.
One: it is one of the only trees in the vicinity of our house that hasn’t collapsed under the stress of the recent ice storm. A large part of the illegal eucalyptus in my neighbor’s yard fell on our roof this morning. Trees live a lot longer than us, so it shouldn’t be surprising that they have developed well-honed senses of dramatic timing. This particular eucalyptus waited until after the conversation with my neighbor, in which she assured me that neither of the branches that were over my house looked like they were going to fall. As a polite tree, it also waited until Tita had moved out of the way before dropping the branch in question.
The cherry out front must have witnessed this entire interaction, and been eager not to be outdone by its junior. It waited until Tita had finished moving the car before it cracked dramatically at the trunk and crashed down, taking the powerline and some shrubs with it. I don’t mean to sound flippant about the fates of these trees—if anything, the fact that they waited to fall apart until we were out of harm’s way should be indicative of the very positive relationship we’ve built with them in the years here.
But, if I’m to be totally honest, it’s a major factor in reconsidering my relationship with the holly. The fact that it hasn’t come anywhere near maiming a member of my household today is major points in its favor. I hope I don’t sound like the friend who has an exceedingly mediocre boyfriend, who says things like, “He doesn’t beat me!” as if that’s a good reason to date someone and not just the absolute bare minimum of acceptable behavior. I guess I just didn’t expect this level of of restraint from a holly that sustains itself through blood tithes.
Two: right now all the birds that were displaced by the other falling trees have taken up with the holly. There’s a whole mess of fat robins sitting in it, eating the bright red berries. It’s great to watch, because their beaks seem far too small, but then they open up and inhale a berry whole like it’s nothing. I once saw a crane gulp an entire gopher in exactly the same way.
Incidentally, I really like birds in the wild. The flying, the feathers, the colors, the sounds—there’s a lot to like. I don’t trust people who keep birds as pets, though. Once you’ve seen a crane just casually flip a fat little mammal down its gullet, or looked into the beady, murderous raptor eyes of a chicken, you should know better than to let any of them into your home. Your only advantage is your size.
I don’t trust the birds, but I trust their opinions, if that makes sense. The fact that they have this whole friendship and symbiosis going on with the holly raises my esteem for it. Of course, I could be looking at this in the wrong way altogether. The birds want to kill me. The holly wants to kill me. It’s only natural they have an alliance. I don’t know, call me naive, but that’s not the vibe I’m picking up here.
That also gives me and the holly one thing in common: we’ve both been feeding the birds lately. Finding common ground is important in establishing a positive relationship. Over the course of the 4 day snow and ice storm that hit Portland, I got really invested in feeding the local wildlife. I made two flavors of suet for the birds - one savory, and one kind of tropical. The tropical one has a base of coconut oil, peanut butter, and chia seeds, which basically makes me the first Jamba Juice franchise to cater exclusively to birds. They went totally wild for it.
I’ve also been putting food out for a stray cat that’s been lurking around and living under our neighbor’s shed. I’m trying to catch the cat, but my trap doesn’t arrive for another few days. In the meantime, fretting about the cat has become my #1 hobby. I figured out that the wet food I was leaving out was freezing too fast, so I made little heat packs out of rice inside of socks. Then I can just set the plate of food on top of the hot socks, and it stays edible for a few hours. Apparently many of my friends used the snowy weekend to go sledding or take romantic snowy walks or play boardgames, but this letter summarizes most of what I spent the last few days doing.
In case you were wondering, this is pretty much what the executive lifestyle is like. You wake up, throw on a bathrobe over your shirt and somewhat transparent silk thermal leggings, and immediately go outside to check on the animal prints in the snow. You wander around the yard in the robe, and you discover raccoon tracks leading to your bowl of dry cat food, you lift up the box you left out for shelter and smell it to make sure the raccoon didn’t pee on it for some reason, then you check to see if all the wet food got eaten. You follow the stray cat’s tracks back to the shed she’s been living under, and briefly wonder if your terrible neighbor who works at Amazon has noticed you kneeling in her yard in your robe.
Heyyyy, Grey Gardens had some pretty good lifestyle advice 🔥🔥🔥 If there's one thing I've learned from the pandemic, it's that robes are basically coats but better. If you had to pick an inappropriate food to toss at a raccoon, what would it be? 🍕🦝❓ LMK at nome@nome.land
🦎 Ask a Gecko 🦎
Dear lemonfritz: I feel like my conscious self is located fully in my head but I’m not sure if that’s because that’s where my brain is or because it’s where my eyes are. If my eyes were in my feet, do you think I would feel like my conscious self was located there? Or would it stay in my head with my brain?
Lemonfritz would like to answer the question, but he’s moving slowly. He’s had an eventful day. A cat sat on top of his home. He approaches the entrance to his cave slowly, thoughtfully. In the meantime, a few other subjects from today’s letter pop in to give their opinions.
Holly tree: Brains and eyes, brains and eyes, when it’s always been about your roots. How wide do they spread? What depths do they tap? You can only know where your self is by knowing where your self is not. The mycorrhizae make this difficult, but from that difficulty arises the meaning of life.
Fat robin: Brain is small, like seed, yes? Chirp! I eat seed! You see, I eat seed, and seed, is part of me. But! I, am not seed. Brain, still not seed. I close eyes! Am still inside seed brain, which is not seed, which I eat! Feel head turn! Whoa! Open eyes, there is more seed to eat!
Lemonfritz the gecko comes out to demonstrate his answer, although he does not say anything. He waggles his fat tail. If threatened, he can drop it. It will never grow back quite the same, though. He blinks his eyes slowly, and licks the ground to know the temperature. Consciousness is the moment you see a wriggling grub and prepare to pounce. It is in your toes and your head and your tail all at once.