Squirrels and Beethoven

On my way to the fine arts building this afternoon I couldn’t help but admire the coming spring. There are moist chunks of soil peaking through the turf everywhere. The dirt is dark, like coffee or chocolate, because it is rich and very moist. Some of the grass is looking green. Most of the turf is dead and tan, but there are countless green blades sprouting. I left the static cement path and walked on the springy ground most of the way.

I practiced Beethoven. The piano is out of tune, and the room--the whole building in fact--smells stale and somewhat neglected. While playing the slow movement I stared at the floor. I noticed there is a scattering of dirt under the piano bench. Students, like me, have been dragging mud inside on their shoes. Now there is gravel under the piano bench. I chuckled because that pile of sand belongs there, but nobody knows it yet.

After two hours, I finished practicing. I called my parents cell phone to tell them I decided that if they come to anything this semester, I want them to come to my Beethoven performance on April 29. That recital is important to me, and I want them to be there.

I left the building and noticed a squirrel sitting on the smallest limbs of a tree. The cement side walk would have caught him, if the branches were to break. The wind pushed his tail in a graceful curve underneath his rump. Only by two paws did he hold onto a branch 1/3rd inch in diameter. His front paws were busy in the vicinity of his mouth. I began to walk gently, in order to walk beneath him without being overly disturbing. He is a campus squirrel, so really doesn’t care if I’m loud or quiet. He dropped something, and it bounced off the pavement. I picked it up. It was the budding tip of a branch. The squirrel is giving the tree its first springtime pruning. Some of the buds had been chewed open and the starchy insides where nibbled out. Some buds were still tightly closed fists.

I sat down and talked to the squirrel for a bit, and listened to the wind, behind the Saturday city traffic. There was also a crow mocking me from a nearby tree, although I never saw him. The squirrel kept pruning the tree, as I studied the branches against the white overcast sky. The squirrel’s tree was budding, and so was the one next to it. But two other trees still have smooth branch tips. “What kind of tree are you in, and what kind of tree is the one that is not budding yet?” My squirrel didn’t answer, and I don’t think he really cared.

The squirrel’s tree has flat shredding bark, like the trunk was wrapped in dark gray paper and then scraped up and down with a sharp garden rake. The other tree has rough lumpy bark with short deep furrows. The different bark, and the different budding time show these trees to be separate species. I like that. I’m beginning to wonder why I practiced Beethoven for two hours.

The squirrel dropped another piece of budding branch. I picked it up, and admired the clenched and opened fists. I think I could feel the squirrel’s spit still lingering where he had been chewing. “Thanks,” I said, and put it in my pocket. I walked back to the dorm while the crow still called after me. The noise of the crow was torn by the throbbing roar of a helicopter flying away from Sanford’s Hospital. I figured the people in the helicopter were not thinking about squirrels or Beethoven.