I’m sitting on the beach right now on my little fold-out, nylon-strapped chair, writing on my laptop. I’m feeling very Gilligan Goes Thoughtful. Very California Dreamin’.
A seagull just landed on the sand right in front of me, the way seagulls do when they’re pretty sure you must have something on or near you to eat. I don’t have anything on or near me to eat — but figured that instead of shooing it away I’d spend a few minutes staring at the bird, since I happen to know that staring at seagulls drives them crazy. They just hate it. They’re weirdly self-conscious.
Now definitely In the Spotlight, the bird has quickly affected Seagull Disdain, and begun to poke about nonchalantly in the sand, as if I weren’t here at all.
It’s a beautiful specimen, sporting that white chest seagulls have that can practically blind you if the sun’s just right.
So this bird was looking reasonably regal — right up until the moment it picked up this huge rock. This wasn’t some little stone the bird might have reasonably mistaken for a McNugget, either. It was the size of a coffee mug. I think the pressure of my staring at the bird compelled him to open his beak wider than I knew they could open up, wrap it around the rock, and hoist that bad boy right up. You could just see that the weight of the rock was practically breaking the poor bird’s neck.
But seagulls must always remain cool. So, still clamping the rock, Jonathon Livingston Flintstone managed to turn his head a bit to fix me with his gaze.
“What are you looking at?” he then seemed to say. “What — you don’t think I thought this was an abandoned bread roll, do you? Do I look stupid? I knew this was a rock. It just so happens that I enjoy holding rocks in my beak, okay? It’s good for the neck muscles. Besides, I could eat this rock if I wanted to. That’s right, numbnuts; I could. Believe me, I’ve eaten worse. Besides, it’s not like you’re bustin’ out the Cheetos, is it, Lumpy?”
This Gull Moment reminds me of a time when I was strolling through a redwood forest in northern California, and saw a squirrel fall out of a tree. I had stopped to watch this adorable little fellow, way up in a majestic tree, gracefully leaping from one branch to the next — when suddenly he was doing something altogether different, which was crashing down through half a tree’s worth of branches, before finally coming to a singularly ignoble “plunk!” on the soft needle bed below.
I stood staring, shocked. Never in a million years would I have guessed that squirrels ever just fell out of trees.
Seemed to be a pretty major news flash to the squirrel, too. Immediately upon landing, Rocky the Non-Flying Squirrel flipped over onto his feet, and, Natural Museum-style, just sort of froze there, as if computing what in the heck had just happened to him. Then he snapped out of it, and, just like he was having nothing more than a typical day dropping out of trees, leaped onto the tree’s trunk, and scittered right back up it.
I stayed beneath the tree for a while, thinking he’d maybe fall out again. Maybe he was the most incapable squirrel ever.
It was while staring up into that giant redwood that I first comprehended the valuable Life Lesson that Stony the Seagull has just reminded me of: You can’t trust Mother Nature any further than you can throw her.
Wait — that’s not a good lesson to learn. These two nature experiences should teach me something better than that.
Nature is God’s way of showing us that life is insane.
No, that’s no good either.
Hmm.
I wonder what lesson I am supposed to learn from boulder-hoisting seagulls and squirrels that fall out of trees?
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