"But it was impossible to not hear the animals, because I looked at them and understood, instantly, and it was like looking at a sentence and understanding the words, all of it coming at me at once."
I grew up in a Philadelphia neighborhood of row homes (now fashionably called townhouses) where everyone lived physically smushed right next to each other. Many of these neighbors influenced my understanding of both animals and people. Down the street lived one such person, an elderly Polish man whose name I never knew. The man lived with what must have been his sons and daughters though I didn’t know them or speak to them. The old man passed time by feeding and watching pigeons. He didn’t speak English at all and though I couldn’t understand his words, his voice was kind and his demeanor gentle. The man’s gray wool pants were too big for him and held up by suspenders. He was thin. So thin that he had no shape under his food-stained clothing. The man wasn’t very tall and was smaller still as he hunched over a bit when standing. The hair that he had on his head and the stubble on his face were both bright white. I was curious about him because he spent a lot of time outside of his house and so did I. When he…