This is a heavy nut year. Last year was light, but this year the black walnut tree in my yard is dropping bushel’s full of nuts. They bounce off the roof at all hours of the day and night, and by morning the patio is littered in green and blackened two-inch balls. This is, of course, excellent news for the large contingent of gray squirrels in my neighborhood. They spend the entire day obsessed with nuts.
Interestingly, the squirrels prefer the nuts they pick to those that have fallen. I am not sure why they have this preference, but they do, and no matter how many nuts are available on the ground, they continue to race to the tree tops and pluck yet another from its stem.
Despite the abundance of nuts, the squirrels regard the possession of one nut as absolute. Once firmly grasped, that nut becomes private property, and if not shelled and eaten is deposited in a hole dug furtively and with great caution. Occasionally, possession of a walnut is cause for conflict, one squirrel chasing the other in frenzied spirals up and down the tree trunk. From time to time, a nut is dropped by a squirrel during the chase, and falling to the ground that nut becomes meaningless to the combatants, who nonetheless continue their aggressive competition.
I can’t help but spend time each day watching the squirrels go about their business, which consists of picking, eating, rejecting and burying nuts, and I find myself thinking about people. We are obsessed with nuts as well, but we call our nuts “money.”
Much of our obsession with money is quite nutty, indeed. Though surrounded by great abundance we suffer from a poverty mentality that makes us feel as if we never have enough. Accordingly, we hurriedly move on day-to-day in search of the next treasure. We too chase each other around in frenzied spirals in pursuit of money to bury in the bank, only to have it taken from us the next day by others who bury it in their account. We often find the money of others more attractive than our own, and regard with envy those who have more. At times anger prompts us to forget money altogether and we find ourselves fighting and competing purely out of habit. I have never seen a squirrel kill for a nut, but sadly, some people kill for money.
Black walnuts are covered in bitterness, a moist and fibrous black layer that creates a dark stain around a squirrel’s mouth. It must be difficult to chew through the bitter husk and hardness of the shell, but the draw of the sweet meat inside is too strong to resist. So it is with us and money, all too often the goal of bitter struggle with life’s hardness and our attempt to satisfy the sweetness we desire. We too can get stained, with dark rings of exhaustion under our eyes and hearts turned black from an insatiable craving for money.
Fall has arrived, and in a few weeks more all the walnuts will have fallen. The squirrels will continue to climb the tree and hunt for a while, but eventually they will move on. Meanwhile, our nuttiness continues. For us, money is always in season.
