Seriously_.I'm Kidding - Ellen DeGeneres [41]
I ponder that expression “You’re a big fish in a small pond.” Do the big fish in my pond know that expression? Do they swim around and try to make the smaller fish feel bad because they’re so small? Or do the small fish know the expression “Good things come in small packages”? Maybe they swim around knowing that even though they’re small they have a lot to offer, like quinoa or an Olsen twin.
I can sit and stare into my pond for hours and hours admiring the stunning reflections of the sky and the clouds and the birds. We have so many different kinds of birds near our house. They’re always chirping away, and I imagine them saying things like, “Oh, that Ellen—she’s so connected to nature. That’s so rare to see in a human.”
“Yeah, she seems so laid-back and cool. Look at her sitting on that bench drinking her coffee,” I imagine another bird saying.
And then the first bird chirps back, “I bet it would be so fun to hang out with her. She reminds me so much of Claire. Such a nut, but so sweet.”
And while they go back and forth saying the nicest things about me—I mean, it’s just so humbling—I start to think about what it would be like to fly around with them all day long, looking at our Earth from way up above, circling and gliding through the air with complete freedom. Sometimes I get so lost in the moment, I start running around my yard, flapping my arms like a seagull at the beach. A lot of times I’ll even start to squawk. Usually right around the third or fourth squawk is when my neighbor starts screaming at me to pipe down. He’s always like, “Quiet down, lady! And put on some pants!” And I’m always like, “YOU put on some pants, sir!” because in the heat of the moment I panic and I can’t think of anything better to say. Of course, he’s already wearing pants, so it doesn’t pack quite the punch I want it to, but the bottom line is he’s clearly not as connected to nature as I am.
Anyway, we have a lot of different kinds of wild animals on our property. We’ve seen bobcats and deer and wild boars. One time Portia was convinced she discovered a whole new species behind our house. She saw something she had never seen before that had tiny eyes and a hairy face. At first I assumed it was my cousin Nancy, but it wasn’t her. Portia said it looked like a warthog, and I had to remind her we don’t live on an African game reserve. Yet.
For a long time I was pretty sure she saw a opossum, but we did eventually figure out that the mystery creature she spotted was a javelina. They’re normally found in desert areas like Tucson. I don’t know what it was doing in Beverly Hills. All I know is, the next time I saw it, it was reading a script for the next Transformers movie and taking meetings with agents.
When I’m not pondering by my pond, I’m outside gardening in my garden. (That is, when I’m not lanaiing on my lanai.) I love to garden. I find it very therapeutic. Actually, I treat it just like therapy. I talk to my plants about what’s going on in my life, about my dreams and aspirations, my fears, my regrets, how frustrated I get when someone suddenly stops at the bottom of an escalator without realizing there’s a whole line of people piling up behind them. I find it very easy to talk to my plants about pretty much everything. And the best part is, instead of having a therapist who wants hundreds of dollars an hour, my plants only charge me sixty.
I just read that gardening is the number one pastime in America. Well, I just wrote it anyway. Who knows if it’s true! What I do know is that gardening is my favorite pastime. I have a lot of hobbies, but there’s something about gardening that’s different. I think it’s because gardening is a hobby you can eat. You plant some seeds,