Nature Wants You to Have the Best

Had a housecat that always claimed and slept on the best chair cushion, and in winter she'd curl up wherever a sunbeam entered the window, and as the sunbeam moved, she'd inch over to stay in it, her black fur getting wonderfully warm. She wanted her favorite salmon for all meals, but she got it only on Sundays, and was persistently vocal about how unhappy she was with dry food. This cat sat on my newspaper while I was trying to read it. I shooed it off. It came back. It was communicating, "What's so interesting there that it absorbs your attention? Pay attention to me."

Cardinals stop coming to my feeder when they've plucked it clean of sunflower seeds. They'll pick them out of the assortment of millet, corn, finch seed, and other grains in normal wild-bird feed, just like they know those seeds are the most expensive in the mix.

Bunnies go right for the tenderest and tastiest things in the garden. The box turtle, like us, waited for the exact day when the cantaloupe was perfectly ripe, and the morning we ran to the garden to seize it we saw the turtle with its head stuck through the hole it'd chewed in the melon's side (even though we had the melons tied up in nylon stockings) shamelessly enjoying the sweet juicy flesh.

Young cedar trees competing with young oaks for good growing spots root themselves just inches in front of the oak, trying to get all the sun and nutrients for themselves.

Everything naturally wants the best for itself -- except human beings. I was raised to settle for what's shabby, secondhand, stale, underpaid, accepting what's below par and be glad I have it at all (called "being grateful"); let others grab the good stuff and take the leftovers ("being noble"); let people exploit and abuse me or mine without objecting (called "being polite"); sacrifice small pleasures like buying a $5 bunch of flowers because I wasn't worth it or every penny must be hoarded out of fear of the future, or to pay bills ("being frugal"). Made for a dull and bitter life. I am learning from nature that what I lived for so long wasn't life at all.