Messy Minded Momma

an·thro·po·mor·phism

noun

The attribution of human characteristics or behavior to a god, animal, or object.

Anthropomorphism comes from the Greek anthropos meaning “human” and morphe meaning “form.”

Having a neurodivergent brain can be challenging at the best of times, but sometimes you get lucky and fall in love with someone whose brain runs on the same strange, creative frequency as yours.

My husband and I rarely talk politics, history, or numbers. Those subjects bore me to tears, so he saves those conversations for the jobsite. Instead, we often get lost in conversations that fall squarely into the realm of anthropomorphism.

I ask questions like, “If broccoli could have a job, what job would he have?” and instantly he’s in on the conversation. Before you know it, we’re assigning careers to vegetables like we’re running a full HR department.

Somehow we both picture the same cartoon broccoli with arms and legs, wearing a white lab coat, a stethoscope around his neck, a prescription pad in hand, and reading glasses perched on the end of his nose.

“Psst… Paging Dr. Broccoli. Dr. Broccoli to room five.”

When we play Guess Who, we never ask the boring questions like “Does your person wear glasses?” Instead, we ask things like:

“Does your person work in an office?”
“Does your person listen to Nirvana?”
“Does your person play an instrument?”

And somehow, nine times out of ten, we both know exactly what that means.

Last night my husband started watching a movie called The Killer on Netflix while we were in bed. I tried to watch it with him, but the time change in Ontario had me completely delirious. I was so tired that instead of following the plot, I became hyper focused on something completely unrelated. The pigeons. There were pigeons everywhere.

The movie takes place in Paris, and every other scene seemed to include pigeons wandering through the background like unpaid extras. My brain could not let it go. I kept thinking: There are a lot of pigeons in Paris.

Maybe this is completely normal. I’ve never been to Paris. In my head it looks like romantic cafes, cobblestone streets, and people sipping wine near the Eiffel Tower.

Not… pigeons. But there they were. Everywhere.

And because my brain loves a good sensory spiral, I suddenly felt like I was in the scene. The flutter of wings. The imagined smell of damp pavement. The feeling of being surrounded. Next thing I know I’m picturing myself as the pigeon lady from Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, except instead of Kevin McCallister feeding them birdseed, I’m standing there questioning all my life choices while they perch on my shoulders. Only I wasn’t enjoying it. I was smack dab in the middle of a panic attack.

One of the things I love most about my husband is his ability to do accents. Any accent. But his exaggerated French accent is my personal favourite. So when I would not stop talking about the pigeons, he leaned over and, in his best dramatic accent, began narrating the scene as if he was one of them. I immediately joined in with my very poor accent, and suddenly our brains were off and running. We started speaking in third person as if we were the pigeons themselves, complaining about the humans. We imagined them wearing tiny berets and mustaches, carrying baguettes, discussing city politics.

“Pierre, look at zis human. Always dropping crumbs but never respecting ze pigeon community.”

“Oui, Jean-Claude. Zey come for ze romance, but zey stay for ze pigeons.”

These pigeons were passionate. Opinionated. Highly organized. Frankly, they seemed to run the entire city.

For the next twenty minutes we laughed so hard we completely missed half the movie. And somewhere in the middle of pretending to be sophisticated Parisian pigeons, it hit me. Anthropomorphism. Giving animals human personalities.

Turns out anthropomorphism isn’t just for cartoons and children’s books. It’s also what happens when two neurodivergent adults get overtired and start giving pigeons French accents.

Sometimes people think living with a busy brain means constant chaos. But every once in a while, it means something else. It means finding someone who will happily debate the career path of broccoli. Someone who understands why Guess Who questions should involve music preferences. Someone who will immediately commit to a twenty minute role play as a very judgmental Parisian pigeon.

And honestly, I think that might be my favourite form of anthropomorphism. Not just giving animals human traits. But finding another human whose brain works just strangely enough to understand yours… and will happily spend twenty minutes being a pigeon with you.