West With Giraffes

by Lynda Rutledge

Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened. —Anatole France, Nobel Laureate, 1921

I’d say I was lucky, but I hadn’t had enough of a relationship with the word to use it.

When you don’t know where your next meal is coming from, that’s all life is—you’re nothing but a feral thing chasing your hunger every minute of the day.

When your shriveled stomach’s aching with hunger, you forget all about your hungry heart. And you keep on forgetting it a little each day until a stray dog has more heart or soul than you.

I stood there in the dark, clenching and unclenching my fists. I was a rowdy of the sneaky coyote variety.

The Old Man whirled that shotgun up like a six-shooter. “We’re on the road, you sodden sumbitch. You’re not leaving us in the lurch. Now shut your trap.” Earl shut his trap. “Sit your worthless ass back down.” Earl sat his worthless ass back down.

shooting me the stink eye of all stink eyes,

“Would I kill for the darlings? Might as well ask me if I’d die for the darlings. Sane answer’s no, I guess. But if you really want to know, it always seemed wrong to think an animal’s life isn’t worth as much as a human’s. Life is life.”

“I did say we’re all lions. Lions got no choice but to always be lions. We do.

abattoir

Didn’t you read ’em in school? Hell, I barely got enough schooling to learn my ABCs and I read ’em all.” Eyes shining, he gestured grandly with the hand holding his Lucky and said, “‘A man can enjoy plunder peaceably nowhere.’” I was pretty sure he was quoting from a book, but the only quoting I’d ever heard was from the Good Book, and I never saw anybody do that gesturing with a cigarette.

Me, I say thanks to what I’m eating. Its life for mine.” He paused, absently rubbing his sorry-looking hand. “Soon enough, I’ll be returning the favor even if it’s only to the worms. We’re just meat when it’s all done. That’s the natural order. What do I care where my meat goes after I’m not using it anymore?” he said, standing up. “Not that I wouldn’t mind being thanked.”

THE SAFEST RULE NO IFS OR BUTS JUST DRIVE LIKE EVERY ONE ELSE IS NUTS

tetchy

Then whatever happens, good or bad, you’ll forever mark it in memory along with the passage of ticking time, a date on a calendar forcing you to look behind with no way to change things and look ahead with no way to know what’s coming.

“Is it over?” I mumbled, looking back down the road. “Is that the end of it?” “You think you always get to know the end of a story?”

Some things are so much yours that you’ve got to keep them to yourself.

Time heals all wounds, they say. I’m here to tell you that time can wound you all on its own. In a long life, there is a singular moment when you know you’ve made more memories than any new ones you’ll ever make. That’s the moment your truest stories—the ones that made you the you that you became—are ever more in the front of your mind, as you begin to reach back for the you that you deemed best.

A world with no jolting giraffe joy or traveling bird waves or soaring forest glory seemed an ugly, barren, and soulless place fit only for the dust storms and the cockroaches and the likes of us.

In a famous 2014 TED talk, nature writer Jon Mooallem suggested how we feel about an animal dramatically influences its future survival. In his words: “Storytelling matters now. Emotion matters. Our imagination has become an ecological force.”

Giraffe Hum Giraffes have been caught on tape by biologist researchers humming at night on a very low, rich frequency. Speculation abounds, such as the hum being a giraffe snore, a sound made when they dream, a sound made when they are content, or even a way to communicate with each other like dolphins or elephants.

The Lincoln Highway was the earliest transcontinental highway route for automobiles across the United States, running through northern states and finished in 1913. The Lee Highway followed, finished in 1923, running through southern states starting at Washington, DC, and ending at the Pacific Highway in San Diego.

Every book is a bit of miracle, and I’m deeply, humbly grateful for this one.