Squirrel Vision

Issue No. 7

Dear Friend,

It was cold this April, so I often gave up on going outside and sat by the window, wearing my faux mohair cardigan reading comfort novels instead. Still, when it came time to organize my pressings from early spring, I was surprised to find I’d pressed as many flowers as I had. There are, in filing order (alphabetical, by colour): ornamental quince, monarch crocuses, daffodils, dandelions, forsythia, narcissus, ranunculus, glory-of-the-snow, periwinkle, Spanish blue bells, creeping speedwell, Dutch crocuses, grape hyacinth, hellebores, primroses, camellias, cherry blossoms, chickweed, fawn lilies, lily-of-the-valley bush, snowdrops, violas, wood anemones, and have your eyes glazed over yet?

We had a heatwave in May and have had decent weather since then and the pressing garden is now well underway, right outside my studio door. At the beginning of May, A. and I mixed last year’s container soil with compost and refilled nearly 50 containers—galvanized buckets, terracotta pots, and, because it can’t be helped, black plastic containers too. So far, I have sowed (I’m sorry, I feel a compulsion to list flowers): bachelor button, California poppy, cosmos, love-in-a-mist, marigold, nasturtium, sunflower, and sweet pea seeds. I must tell you that I laughed when I opened the wee manila envelope of sunflower seeds a friend had gifted me. What did I expect them to look like? Of course, they look the same as the ones we eat when they’re still in their “shells”.

Every morning, I pad outside in my Indian cotton robe and slippers with my coffee mug in hand to peek into the containers and coo at my seedlings. I confess that I never believe seeds are going to sprout until they do (who says magic doesn’t exist?). They almost make me uncomfortable, in the same way that whales make me uncomfortable. I think what I’m saying is that sometimes I don’t know how to hold all the awe that things like seeds and whales engender.

There are perennials returning in the pressing garden too (last list, I promise): delphiniums, goldenrod, hollyhocks, Oriental poppies, phlox, rock rose, scabiosa, sweet woodruff, violas and maybe a couple of others that I’m forgetting about right now. Plus, I’ve bought some starts (okay, I lied about the lists): creeping zinnia, pansies, and petunias, with more to come.

In early May the grass was full of dandelions. I read recently that no other flower represents the sun, the moon, and the stars as much as dandelions do. Their yellow blooms are, of course, the sun. When they turn into silvery puff balls, they are the moon, and when you blow on a dandelion puff the seeds disperse and become a constellation of stars.

Our landlady was here when the dandelions were at their peak and asked if we wanted the grass mown on our side of the property. I said it was up to her because of my soft spot for the dandelions and privately hoped they wouldn’t be mowed down. We then got chatting outside until her cell phone rang. When she answered we could hear her say things like, “I’m so sorry that happened to you,” “No, I don’t know an A— C—,” “New Year’s Eve was a long time ago,” and right before she hung up, “I love my husband and don’t cheat on him.”

Turns out it the call was from a woman who’d found out her husband was having multiple affairs. She’d just gone through his phone and was calling numbers she didn’t recognize, including our landlady’s, whose number her husband called three times on New Year’s Eve (maybe he was looking for an apartment to house one of his lovers?). So that was a bit of excitement, though we felt bad for the woman. I felt that maybe we should’ve invited her over for tea and sympathy.

It’s funny what passes for excitement these days. I was feeling overly dramatic the other week and ruefully commented to A. that in “the desert of middle-age” buying an air fryer was the most exciting thing that had happened to us lately.” But then the squirrel incident happened

A couple who lives across the hall from us asked us to look after their sweet potato of a cat on the weekend. We love this cat—Haze a.k.a. Hazy Baby—and gladly obliged. Come Saturday night, A. headed over ahead of me while I watched the end of a show. Two minutes later he reappeared with the thrilling news that there was a squirrel in the foyer! I got to my feet so fast that I got dizzy.

The poor squirrel must’ve come in through an open stained-glass window above the grand staircase. We went up the second floor and found the poor thing hiding amidst the shoe collection of our neighbour Jade who lives directly above us. She keeps the collection on a couple of two-tiered shelving units outside her door. The squirrel stared up at me with their Glosette eyes while I spoke in soothing tones to them (Jane Goodall says that animals of an unknown sex should be referred to with they/them pronouns). Eventually, they made a run for it with me herding from behind and A. blocking the upstairs hallway, but then another neighbour came home and disrupted the whole operation, and the squirrel went back to the shoes.

We were making quite a commotion and since some of the shoes had become skew whiff, I thought I’d better put on a mask and knock on Jade’s door and let her know what was happening. Jade could be a Sally Rooney character. She is young and thin, has bangs and wears interesting outfits, and is sometimes aloof and sometimes not.

A hot flash struck me as soon as Jade opened the door. She was beautifully dressed in a long, straight skirt and tucked in top, while I was in my pajamas, flushed and lumbering, going on about our failed attempts at squirrel extraction. I apologized for being in a state and she said I was “gorgeous”, which was kind even if it was a lie. She then stepped out of her apartment, told whoever she had on speakerphone there was a situation, and came to assist us.

Once again, the squirrel made a run for it, tail swishing madly, down the stairs. We followed, but we lost sight of them. Jade knelt on an antique chair by the foyer fireplace and peered over the back of it, but there was no squirrel. So, then she and A. went back upstairs and a few minutes later called down that they couldn’t see the squirrel anywhere. I knew they had to be there, so I hobbled back up to check and there they were trembling behind a pair of boots. “You have squirrel vision,” Jade said. “I’m not surprised,” she added. “You’re so…” She waved her hands in the air to indicate something that would complete the sentence without saying anything more and I’m still wondering what she had in mind.

Jade then headed back downstairs to be in a strategic location to corral the squirrel through the propped open front door. I whispered at the squirrel to run, and they ran. I could hear A. and Jade’s excitement from the first floor as the squirrel made it across the foyer. But then they missed the door completely, trapping themselves on the wrong side, and A. and Jade made the sounds people make when someone misses a goal. Then came their cheers as the squirrel finally made it out the door to freedom. I poked my head over the banister in time to see A. and Jade high-five and hug. When Jade came back up the stairs I was going down and we hugged too. “That’s the most fun I’ve had with neighbours,” she said.

After that A. and I went to do our kitty-sitting duties and then went to bed, spent, which is the thing about excitement, it’s very tiring.

Yours Ever,

J