i don't know what to call this

mice and native americans and a general lack of capitalized letters

i rehomed a mouse this morning and by that i mean i moved it from my home to a local nature presurve after it crawled out of the drain in the kitchen sink late last night.

i discovered the mouse by dumping water into the sink right as the mouse was creeping out of the drain into our apartment. we were equally horrified to be made aware of each other’s presence. after i was done screaming, i engaged my fearless roommate for assistance, and we secured it in a piece of tupperware; i turned to the internet to see what to do with it and the amount of people suggesting i either hit it with a hammer or twist it’s head to break it’s neck unnerved me. and those were the humane suggestions. neither of which was an option for me. but i was torn because the only two viable options i had were either suffocation [and i had no way to suffocate it quickly] or relocation.

relocation seemed like the right choice, the bright choice, the happy choice. it looks good on paper - take the poor mouse who somehow accidentally got into your house [lol] to a field or a park or the woods and release it where it will truly be happy. [actually, it sounds like a stupid tampon or pad commercial with the stupid smiling actress on the stupid bike, completely out of touch with reality.] animals released into the wild after spending their entire lives in captivity are far less likely to survive. animals whose migratory patterns are disrupted, ending up in climates or countries not suited for their survival, are less likely to survive. animals that are relocated are less likely to survive depending on what type of animal they are. a bear typically does very well being relocated away from suburban areas because they are at the top of the food chain.

a mouse however, is at the bottom of that same food chain. it does not know the places to find food, it is unfamiliar with the predators in the area or how to avoid them and it does not know of a safe place to sleep. mice are far less likely to survive a relocation and so while the whole catch and release concept does have it’s merit, it has no guarantee of success. in some ways, it is the same as suffocation; slow and painful.

i went to the chiropractor this morning with ferret rocher¹ ensconced in it’s tupperware prison beside me in the passenger seat. i took it to a local nature presurve afterwards and let it scurry off into the underbrush towards it’s new life. while i walked back to the car, the wind caught in the trees, leaves scattered across the boardwalk and i started thinking about people. specifically about the morality of relocating people.

with the three wars occurring on the other side of the world right now [myanmar’s is internal, against their military dictator, ukraine and russia, and now palestine and israel] and the ongoing humanitarian crisis in regards to immigration happening on our own border with mexico for years, it is impossible not to see the similarities, not to ask who are the bears and who are the mice? who is the one “in charge”, responsible for the catching and release, for the relocation that is often synonymouse with starvation and suffocation? why are assylum seekers put in the same social strata as rodents? when did immigration start meaning infestation?

we had indigenous people’s day earlier this month. in less than two weeks it will be native american heritage month. i’ve unlearned parts of my education and relearned the true history of this nation in regards to it’s first inhabitants. all of it is horrible.

i wonder about hte first person to discover that removing a creature from it’s natural habitat would make it less likely to survive. who was it? how did they discover it? did they discover it with animals or people? did they discover it out of ill intent or good intentions? do they know their discovery was used to cause so much harm? does it matter? [no.] i don’t have the heart to google any of this, not even to share it with you.

mice in houses are dangerous. they contaminate food, carry diseases, and their urine and poop can cause serious illnesses. but why are they in the house in the first place? because this house was built on their home. i don’t know much but i am willing to bet money on the mice being here first - which makes me, my roommate, and everyone else in this neighbourhood interlopers. mice need a place to live too and the homes of many living creatures have been destroyed by humans. so have natural food sources and ecosystems.

mice in houses is not about poorly built living structures but about how our society is founded on the thieving of what is deemed valuable from those using it, then gatekeeping it from them. the concept of owning anything was born directly from humxn greed because greed preaches that the only way possession is meaningful is if you are keeping that which you possess from someone or something else. mutual belonging [the way the entirety of nature, excluding the majority of humxns, functions] could be stylised as mutual possession, if possession did not have such negative connotations. but greed leaves no room for that and true possession of anything on this earth is impossible due to the very nature of creation. we don’t have it in us to be owned or controlled: not humxns, animals, insects, trees, stars, storms, ect. ect. it is not built into our dna the way a fight or flight instinct is; we none of us yearn for possession the way we seek out the sun or sources of water.

native americans had the land they refused to own out of respect for mother nature taken from them by people with no morals, honour, or inhibitions. they were relocated to reservations, away from everything they knew. their children were forced into the suffocation of boarding school, cut off from their roots, their language, their families and everything they knew.

they were never supposed to survive.

any descendant of those native people alive to day is an accident. an oversight. a miracle.

i know this and i still packed a mouse into tupperware and set it loose somewhere where it isn’t likely to survive. we’re both caught in the spiderweb of society, both suffering from it; the mouse because it is going to die, me because i am going to be part of the reason it will die. i am being made complicit in an attempt to keep me quiet, so when i say that something is wrong those in charge can say but you have done it too, so they can call me a hypocrite and discredit me to those willing to listen and change. “she’s no better than the rest of us.”

no, i’m not. i know i’m not. but i am more self aware.

i’m choosing to let this bother me [in case that waasn’t obvious]. i’m choosing to “over spiritualize” it [like that is even possible]. i’m choosing to pay attention to the way everything is connected. i’m choosing to hope that one day there is a world where we don’t lie about native american history, reparations have been made and are continuing to be made, humxns are taking steps to coexist peacefully with their fellow inhabitants of the earth, and mice have plenty of places to live without having to resort to man made houses.²

1. i name the mice we find in our house even though we will not be keeping them. ferret rocher is the only one we have managed to catch. jinx is another baby, with larger ears and neutral vibes. hercules is a round, good tempered mouse with good vibes. carole baskins is a mean looking skinny mouse who probably killed her husband; bad vibes all around that one.

2. this post is free because i do not wish to earn money from speaking on the crimes perpetuated against the native american community by those sharing my skin colour.