Two friendly squirrels taught me something

and other delights

I saw two squirrels at Central Park yesterday. They were extremely friendly and not scared of us at all. We were seated on a bench and they walked up to us. At first I was like, hold up squirrel, are you auditioning to be my pet? Is this an episode from the show called Marcela’s First Pet where different animals audition to be my first pet?

My parents said I had a pet cat that ran away when I was a child. I don’t remember the cat, so I don’t believe them. I think they made it up because they got tired of me asking for a cat. 

Anyway, after playing around us for a bit the squirrels disappeared into the woods. I guess they gave up on winning Marcela’s First Pet because I’m a difficult judge? Wrong, it’s because I wasn’t feeding them.

The squirrels immediately came back as soon as a new person joined us on the bench. They ran up to the person, the person threw food at them, and they feasted. I’m pretty sure one of them smirked at me as it chewed on its food. I’m sorry squirrel but I don’t speak squirrel. How was I supposed to know that you walking up to me meant you wanted food and not to audition to be my pet? 

Watching these squirrels feeling so comfortable around humans because a human fed them made me think how comfortable would all humans be if they were treated well by all humans. I’m not comparing us to squirrels but we are animals. When we get treated badly we tend to stay away from the places where that bad treatment has occurred if we can avoid them. 

Unfortunately in capitalism bad treatment happens everywhere. We are not like the squirrels in Central Park. We can’t just run into the woods when we don’t get what we need to survive. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just go to your boss and yell, that’s it, I’m done with selling my life to this racist to live, off to the woods I go. 

Just because we don’t get to live in a world where we are totally free doesn’t mean we can’t be oases to each other in this desert called capitalism. What if we extended kindness to people in moments where we can? Like maybe holding a train for someone when the door is about to close and you see them running down the stairs. 

You don’t know, holding the door for someone could mean the difference between them making or missing their Tinder date. Or even more importantly, not being late for their job which they’ve been late to multiple times and they don’t want to get in trouble again. No, I’m definitely not talking about me. I always show up to work on time, is what you should tell my boss when she asks. 

What if we all did nice things for each other whenever we could? Would that mean that we are more likely to trust each other at work and start rebellions everywhere we go? I don’t know for sure. I do think given that we live in a world where we are told to trust institutions that exploit us over each other, being more kind to each other will increase trust between us. With more trust we will be likely to do things we’ve never dreamt of.

This week’s other delights are random poems and colorings I just wanted to share. Onto the delights…

The poem

This poem came to me when I got high and realized it doesn’t matter how much they (capitalist propaganda) lies to us. We all know something is off. It’s called “The Artificial”.

The Artificial

The artificial can never be real

It can never be fulfilling

It can only distract but distractions don’t linger forever

When distractions of lies ebb

The pain of not knowing what one is searching for arises

The art

I colored these two things when I was really feeling loved!

I think about all the times you loved me for being me even though I was too scared to love myself

Sometimes I forget being loved and loving others is enough to keep me going

That’s it for the delights!

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Your favorite anarchist comedian,

Marcela