While sipping my morning coffee, I looked out into the backyard and saw something I never expected: a chipmunk having what appeared to be the time of his tiny little life with… a worm. He hurled it in the air, chased after it, tapped it with his tiny paws, and jumped playfully each time the worm wiggled. He was completely captivated. I must admit I have never seen a chipmunk playing just like a cat or a dog would with its favorite toy. We tend to reduce wildlife to the usual—eating, fleeing, mating, nesting—and then something like play catches us off guard. I see chipmunks as energetic foragers, scurrying in and out of the ferns, stuffing their little cheeks with nuts, and diving for cover as fast as their little legs can carry them whenever I step outside my kitchen door. It was amusing and oddly charming.
A short time later, I was driving on I-20 and looked up in time to see roughly 2 dozen Canada geese flying overhead in a jagged formation. A second flock of Canada geese followed, but flying in the opposite direction, two V-formations of geese passing each other at slightly different elevations. I admired the ingenious avian air traffic controller in charge and wondered if the geese were momentarily confused, thinking… Wait, what, am I in the right group?
First the chipmunk, then the geese. Both had a surreal quality: the familiar behaving in a way I didn't expect, catching my attention and making the natural world suddenly feel briefly playful, undoubtedly a wink from C.