Nothing to Say
“The whisper of every leaf and creature implores us to love the natural sources of our lives, which - indeed - may hold secrets of love for all things, especially our own humanity.”
There are plenty of reasons not to love raccoons. For one thing, they can be greedy. Last summer they got into the greenhouse and ate those tiny French melons I'd been babying along for weeks. Sometimes raccoons are aggressive. They hiss and bare their sharp teeth even if you say hello nicely. Plus, the racoons at my place like to poop on the welcome mat. I notice how quickly my antipathy kicks in: fox poop feels like a gift, but I am uneasy with racoons.
Every evening, just before dark, a particular raccoon comes around looking for snacks, which he usually finds, because I like to leave treats for the fox. The raccoon figured this out and now the fox has run off.
Here's the story in my head about the fox. He's a he, young and skittish. He's one of the three kits born last year to the mother fox who had become my friend, in a wild-fox-and-human-come-to-an-understanding sort of way. She visited every afternoon at dusk. I left her an apple or sometimes an egg. Blueberries. Apricots in summer (her favorite). Something seasonal, I figured, that she might find in the neighborhood on her own.
I only saw the kits once. It was late and I was a little bit stoned, so of course it made sense to sit on the floor in the dark and watch for shadows that moved in the garden. They came right up to the sliding glass doors, then disappeared into the foggy gray twilight. The lifespan of a fox is about three years. My original fox friend is likely no longer with us, and now, this one individual has returned to carry on the connection.
But last night, instead of the fox, it was a racoon who came to savor the bounty - a fresh egg and some pear. First, he ate the egg. He ran off and came back. They he ate the slices of pear. And just as I thought, Wait a minute, you're not the fox, you're a raccoon! and, Hey, that's not for you! he looked up. Our eyes met. Light spilled from the kitchen and lit up his face. The fur on his chin and around his nose was light gray, nearly white, with parallel black stripes on either side of his nose and chin.
I wanted to say... I started to say... I might have said... Oh hell, I don't remember. He kept staring. Rather, he didn't stare, he looked. Calmly. Not blinking. Curious and unabashed. He sat on his haunches. I saw his white belly. The fur was lustrous and thick. Our eyes met. Neither of us turned away. Human and racoon, separated only by a pane of glass and my mind.
There was nothing to say.
We just looked.
