Sea Kitty Maggie

An enchantment cast upon Pittsburgh made it warmer around here these last couple of days.

The lighter layer of snow melted and melded into the thicker colder layer of snow, forging that compact icy crisp- the kind of snow we use for snow forts and battles. I pine for at least one more snowball fight before I turn thirty. I've got a couple years, and I don't fear getting older at all. I've chosen thirty as it's a socially constructed landmark of "aging." I've chosen thirty because you can reverse all the damage you do only unto hitting thirty, then science says it's permanent.

I do fear surrendering to age and getting more and more accustomed to acting according to it. In a dozen more seasons, when it's the perfectly packed snow like this, will I be guarded and too mature to ask the frozen water to assemble the battalions, too brittle to lift it all up into one perfectly healthy sphere? 

My guess is for everyone to watch for snowballs this season as well as the next twelve. No one is safe. Snowballs are the white fluff of enchantment.

The maximum temperature this past week probably wasn't above 40°. I'm jealous of how much warmer it feels when you're around 220-660 pounds with a coarse, short fur coat. Once again, there are no people. I won't get to hit anyone with a snowball today, which I guess is better for everyone involved.

The mid-winter spell has temporarily fizzled out and this city's starting to dip back down into colder temperatures. There has been another dusting of snow along the paths and plants. Another batch of white-out to correct all our history. All our footprints erased, our daring sculptures censored, snow angels now with their wings clipped, as if they never flew in the first place. 

The first known zoo was just discovered in 2009. In Hierakonpolis, Egypt, a discovery of an ancient zoo, called a menagerie, dated 3,500 B.C., was found to have contained skeletons of hippos, hartebeests, elephants, baboons and wildcats. It's hard to believe we've been doing this for so long, through all these winters. Through King Ashur-bel-kala, Empress Tanki and King Wen of Zho, Solomon, Semiramis, Ashurbanipal, Alexander the Great and many more after that, we've trapped animals in cages and watched over them for more than 5,000 years. A menagerie symbolized power in aristocrats who kept wild expensive animals captive, and it wasn't until the 19th century that we decided calling something zoological in the name of science was perhaps somehow a nice form of public entertainment.

Just think, all those fucking winters.

I really hate hate hate the cold, and I could complain so much we'd run out of the earth's oxygen from all the hot air, but jump through all those years and the California sea lions seem to have never minded it. 

(Annoying the visitor's office has become 

a regular culture of my visits. The clerk told 

me the friendliest sea lions are Selina and 

Maggie, so out of guesswork and the sake 

of my people friend Maggie (and fun), I'll 

assume this sea lion was the one who 

shares the name.)

Sea Lion Maggie pauses again and again and I lean in forward a bit, just to get to know her a little better. I get as close as I can to the scratched glass wary of catching germs from the baby hand residue. I want to feel nearer Maggie. I want to share the same water so I can know and understand her even closer. I'd run my hand along her forehead, the color of my grandmother's grey hair, to see whether she's slimy or smooth. I'd tell her how jealous I am of those strong wiry whiskers, being outgrown by a beautiful bearded lady. Sea Lion Maggie's got the friendliest eyes with a yellowish brown tint. They remind me of a drop of the natural honey, the dark honey I buy from West Virginia hives, plopped on a ceramic plate. She blows bubbles out of her nose to help her swim around just as we do. I consider her mortality. I consider that she and I wouldn't be so different from each other swimming side by side, blowing bubbles from the same body of water. We sea kitties would live just about the same as large land kitties. We'd travel in packs called harems. Just like land lions, there'd be a male, a bull, who heads a groups of females, or cows. I'd have to fight a 660 pound sea lion to stick around. I could take him, or I could convince him to compromise. They work as a pack just as I work best as a pack, though I wish I were strong enough to be alone. We're both so utterly codependent. I understand too well the need for a tribe, for a colony. 

I imagine Sea Lion Maggie feels like those ultra-Mormon tribes, all those women packed around one husband, but she's blissfully ignorant of all that. She has no need for a religion. She might pray for more fish or a shiny red ball to play with. She might pray that her family stays safe and maybe she prays that life gets a little more exciting than swimming around that little pool all day. But she doesn't need it. I don't need it either. All we need is the love of meeting and knowing other beings. Our lifeblood is connection.

Maggie seems young, she seems to have a young spirit and I think we share that, too. I hope she doesn't change any of her behavior as she gets older and more cynical about it all. She's not trying to judge my actions or win me over, she's just watching, curious, and I wish I could ask her, if nothing else, to not let her curiosity fade away.

I wished I could ask or talk to Sea Lion Maggie about our history. I wanted to tell her what my beings have done to her beings and come to some sort of understanding. She'd learn about the zoological societies and the oldest zoo still in existence, Tiergarten Schöbrunn, in Vienna, Austria. I'd tell her about Ota Benga, a Mbuti pygmy part of the extensive list of human exhibits, and we'd philosophize about why keeping humans contained was suddenly not okay, yet containing animals presses forward in the name of "science." Maybe she wouldn't care, but I wanted to talk to her about anything at all, really, and maybe the feeling was mutual, as she swam to and fro returning to watch me every couple of minutes.

I stood there staring back at her, until it seemed inhuman to stay there any longer.