Yesterday, zookeepers visited Sis and Bud's school, bringing with them animals to share. Bud and Sis were ecstatic with the visit, baraging me with stories of the "xiao bai tu," or white bunny, as well as the bird (was it a dove? they couldn't be sure) and the hedgehog. A hedgehog! I was totally jealous. I love hedgehogs, well, except that I've never seen a real one. I love the cartoon ones, the ones in Jan Brett's books or in my British cross-stitching magazines featuring Country Companions. I would love to live in a place where I have a hedge and a garden and little hedgehogs running around, but I've contented myself with the animated variety. Today my kiddos saw a real one and wanted to take me, immediately, to the zoo to see it too (though, I've never noticed a hedgehog compound at the zoo). Alas, it was too cold and so I had to live vicariously through their stories.
There are other animal fantasies we have. Last weekend, Sis was enumerating for Mama which animals she wanted to see for real: an orca, a whale shark, a panda (she saw one of these when she was 8 months old but of course doesn't remember). Mama even brought home pictures and a notebook so Sis could compile her own journal of things she liked and wanted to do.
I don't think Bud really dreams about animals. He's very fond of his stuffed penguins but I'm not sure he needs to see the real ones, except in the zoo or aquarium.
But Mama dreams of penguins and she wants to go to Antarctica to see them. Our friends, nicknamed collectively "Benny," went a few years ago and had a life-changing experience. And so Mama is focused on our own trip there, in a decade or so, when the kids will be old enough to go. And we've saved the money to do it. Whenever we talk about traveling, even just daytrips locally, she gets that wistful look in her eye that someday we will visit the South Pole and the penguins there. Until then, she's content to plan it. And save.
Today, in the paper, I saw an article on swimming with the manatees. Mama and I love manatees, those gentle "sea cows," that we have seen in the aquarium at Disney World/Epcot. But can you imagine actually swimming with them? Mama, would you push back penguins a year or two to swim with manatees?
My dad and mom recently pursued animal fantasies in Alaska, wandering the state during an exceptionally rainy August in hopes of seeing a bear. I think they saw a moose, pretty sure they saw an eagle, but the bear was illusive, despite several attempts to see one. And then, I believe, on their drive back to town to leave the next day, Dad took one of his famed "shortcuts" down a backroad and there it was: a black bear in the grass. And they've got the pictures to prove it.
What is it about animals? My friend who visited this morning is an animal person. I've always had and loved my pets. Mama is devoted to our cats, past and present (it is the second anniversary of Morgan's death soon, which is hard). Neither Mama nor I have much experience in nature seeing animals, though I come from an outdoorsy family and my dad's idea of the perfect day is just to sit and watch birds land on his duck pond, beavers try to dam his pond, or a deer wander across the yard in front of his cabin in the wild woods of Texas. I think Sis has inherited Pop's connection with nature. She has this rapport, this connection,this bond with animals--our cats, squirrels in the yard, animals at the zoo/aquarium/nature center, animals in pictures, her toy animals (which is why Diego is still her favorite tv character and "Wonder Pets" one of her favorite shows). She came up with being a vet for Halloween all on her own and it fits her. There is something spiritual about our interactions with nature, particularly with animals, that can be life-changing, awe-inspiring, emotional. And because of the nature of the world we live in, these interactions are few and far between and become relegated to the realm of dreams alone.
My own animal fantasies are pretty typical: whales in their native habitat, ditto with koalas, and those hedgehogs, of course. I had another--to see a panda bear, in captivity or not--and three years ago, we all visited the National Zoo. And there was the mommy panda and her own baby (born the same weekend as the twins!). It was breathtaking. And I cried. And I will cry when they send the "baby," now a big panda, back to China. And so, we will probably be going back to D.C. soon to visit, to revisit my panda love and to fulfill Sis's.
And then, for sure, penguins.
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