My family and I were watching the Gorillas at the Toronto Zoo on the weekend.  Seeing the little guy, Nassir, born in September was amazing.  Hanging off his Mom with his long skinny arms.  I’m convinced Leo could take him in a human on primate baby grudge match, but sadly I’m sure he’ll never have the opportunity. 

So they do a cool thing in the gorilla pavilion.  The zookeepers get all the gorillas into a room full of jungle gym equipment while they go into the other big area and hide food in plastic jugs, balls, you know, all the things they find in the jungle.  And then they let them back in so they can find the food using their intelligence and creativity and eat. 

I watched  Charles, a big male trying to get a 1/4 orange out of a mesh-covered foot-long cylinder that was filled with hay.  He was having a tough time with it because his fingers were  the size of bananas and the holes in the mesh weren’t. 

But he had this amazing calm focus as he worked at it.  And worked at it.  And worked at it.

I was watching and thinking – ok by now I’d have yelled, “WHO’S FAT IDEA WAS IT TO HIDE MY LUNCH IN THIS THING???”  And then I watched some more and thought, ok by now i’d have biffed the thing across the room.  Or wrenched it open if I had fingers the size of bananas. 

But not this guy, he focused on getting the orange until he did.  And then he ate the orange, calmly looking around at the silly humans behind the plexiglass.  It was just a task to him.  There was no additional drama or emotion or ‘why is the universe being so mean to me’.  And he was focused on just this task.  He wasn’t talking on the phone while checking his email while eating his lunch.

And then he sat for a bit.  I love to watch them sit.  They sit like small black furry mountains, completely settled into the ground.  They don’t look like they’re uncomfortable or thinking ‘oh my aching hip’, or about to jump up and flee, like people in yoga class sometimes do.  The gorillas are *there*.

I think i need more gorilla mojo in my life.  More single tasking.  More sitting like a mountain.  And more oranges.