KEEPER AND CREATURE
I have taken to decorating my
enclosure with the care of both
keeper and creature. Exchanging
familiar fencing with scenery better
suited for stimulation. Lunch breaks
spent at book stores and coffee shops.
Cheap plastic plants supplanted by
native flowering foliage. It isn’t the
biology of behavior, just the humidity.
When the beast starts pacing, take it
for a walk. Maybe if I paint the walls
around me in brighter shades of joy,
the rest will follow suit. Like a
chameleon melting into the branches.
In the right environment, even the
unremarkable common lizard morphs
into something worthwhile.
- Amelia Riley
Lately, if you were to ask me what animal I would be if I were in a zoo, I would point you toward the Herpetarium. Past the striking emerald boa, the keen eyed king cobra, and all the rows of sharp teeth that line the jaws of the West African slender-snouted crocodile. There is a certain power in being admired or avoided, but I am currently too lacking in both color and menace to be considered for either. Instead, draw your attention to the smaller glass enclosures lining the walls. Each no bigger than a shoe box. When at last you identify the common brown anole (what us non-herpetologists would call “a lizard”), find me reflected in its well meaning and entirely ordinary gaze.
When a captive animal’s behavior starts to shift towards distress, the first thing keepers question is the environment. The relentless heat of this summer has set me pacing, and so I’ve begun to redesign my own enclosure. Wild encounters to coffee shops and parks. Hours of instagram reels replaced with crafting “book nooks” and varied attempts to regain the long lost habit of reading physical print. I want to hold something in my hands. I want to be reminded that the world is wide and open.
This week, I carried my laptop into a local bookstore with no small amount of uncertainty. A feeling which, to my relief, quickly vanished when I saw that I was not alone in my intention to settle in for the afternoon. Dozens of people reading, writing, reviewing spreadsheets, and drinking iced coffees the size of their head. They came. They left. They returned carrying new materials. I felt not an inch out of place and wondered why I hadn’t done this in so many years.
Perhaps because it is admittedly a considerable effort, being responsible for both the act of healing and of being healed. To be our own keepers. I spend my time tracking it all. The hours spent in sunlight, steps taken, clouds in the sky. Only the days seems to slip by without my notice, but now the hours at least feel less empty. Mostly.
I don’t know if forcing myself to spend my lunch break anywhere but my desk has made the heat any more tolerable. Or if reading the words of greater creatures has made me feel any less the unremarkable lizard. However, when the woman next to me asked what I was working on, the world seemed to open up a little more. I’ve discovered a playground next to the local library that I might one day take my daughter to when the temperature cools. I’m a few hours away from being the proud creator of a slightly off center, greenhouse themed “book nook”.
Maybe for now, it is enough.
