Children see the best part about being an animal

As featured May, 11, 2012, on www.cnjonline.com

The wind giveth and it taketh away.
At any given time around here you’re likely to be on one end or the other of the wind equation – losing or receiving property.
Sometimes the gifts are large, for instance the wind might decide you need the neighbor’s blue plastic kiddie pool more than they did, or their patio umbrella or trampoline.
And then other times it's just papers and cups, bags and boxes.
In recent weeks one such wind delivery stood out from the others. Plastered to the fence like a flyer on a bulletin board, its defiance of gravity was quite the attention getter and it was just begging to be read.
Leaning closer, neatly penciled sentences greeted from the tattered backside of a school worksheet.

“I would like to be a tiger because they have a beautiful stripe. They are hunter(s). They are strong.

I would like to be a whale because they have a big body and swim.

I would like to be a aunt because they are very tiny. I would like to see their world.”

The simplicity of it struck immediately.
“If you could be any animal what would you choose?” It's a question that most of us have been asked at one time or another, but it's without a doubt a question best answered by a child.
For an adult mind, the question can easily becomes more a process of elimination than a creative exercise.
We grownups would automatically evaluate the downside of being a tiger – eating every meal ultra rare, being chased by angry villagers and watching our social circle shrink as we climb the top 10 list of endangered species.
And we know that being the size of a whale with no arms and legs – something we spend much of our mid-to-later years trying to fight – makes getting beached a real possibility. Not to mention having barnacles stuck to your skin has to itch and getting knocked around by ships and possibly harpooned is no way to live.
And of course some days we already feel like ants as we get in our cars and drive to work, but the reality of living a life of fealty in a dirt maze, just a cog in a machine that supports an over-fertile matriarch, is taking it a little too far. That and the thought of getting excited about broken pre-licked bits of candy, spilled milkshakes and partially eaten sandwiches is just plain unappealing.
In fact none of the lives animals live seem all that appealing. Wolves get tranquilized and relocated while they sleep, dogs get fleas, birds have to eat worms, hungry bears become targets, fish get stuck swimming in polluted water, horses have to carry people... the list goes on and on.
Children, on the other hand, are blessed by not seeing any of that. They see things not as they are, but how they should be – through the lens of ideals, not reality.
But perhaps with a little tweaking, the answer to the question can be as simple for adults.
How about any animal, as long as it's not grown up and still gets to see the world the way it should be.

Note to the teacher who gave this assignment: The student forgot to put their name on their paper, but they told the truth when they said it blew away. Please give them credit for their homework.