Squirrel Dreams?

Not all that many squirrels romp around my neighborhood. Not surprising, given that my little community sprang unexpectedly from over-tilled cornfields. A paltry number of trees dot my immediate landscape. I can count them on the fingers of one hand.

It was in the middle of our deep freeze when my eyes gazed upon the skeletal tree to the east. It looked incredibly forlorn. There, near the terminus of an anorexic limb, bulged a solitary squirrel’s nest. I became fixated on the mysteries of squirrels and survival in the grip of winter’s harsh reality. I’ve no doubt the fact my nuts were frozen helped to fuel my fugue.

How do they do it? How does a squirrel survive sub-freezing temperatures and bitter winter winds? I know that if I were to attempt such a feat, I’d be dead within hours. And yet, the squirrel sleeps. Despite the roaring winds, the sleet or hail or shards of ice, the squirrel sleeps blanketed only by its tail.

And what does the squirrel dream?

Does it toss and turn within its heaving, tortured nest? Does it wake in the dead of the deadest night, frozen within ice, and bewail its very existence? Does it curse? Does it fret? Does it lose all hope and simply succumb to death? Apparently not.

The squirrel sleeps. What must this hardy soul dream such that it can endure, survive? Does it dream of spectacular summer days, of plump seeds and amorous exploits? Is there more? Is there healing magic? What dreams can so beguile a soul that it wills itself to endure the unendurable? I’d like to know.

I need a few dreams like that myself.

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