Remember a few years back when everyone was obsessed with penguins? There was the penguin movie, the one where Morgan Freeman narrated the lives of adorable little Antarctic explorers. There was also the animated penguin movie, where they find their life mates by dancing to the same song. There were the Planet Earth movies, which also featured penguins heavily. There were cartoons and plush penguins and some sort of collector game, like Penguin Pokemon or something (I don't know, I was an adult). I kind of missed the whole craze because it was around this time that I was getting married and pregnant and having my first baby, and there just wasn't any room for new obsessions beyond the people I was desperately in love with in my own house. But a few years later, when my little baby was a little boy interested in aquatic life, I finally got around to viewing a nature documentary (or ten) and I learned about penguins. They are interesting little birds, I'll admit. They live in the coldest part of the world, where there are no people (except the ones holding the cameras? How did they get all that footage?). They are birds, but can't fly. And when they lay their eggs, the ladies take off and the male penguins keep their little ones warm. This is the thing I want to talk about, the aspect of penguin life that stuck with me after the passage of time and the loss of brain cells.
So the females lay the eggs, and then the males sit with them to keep them warm until its time for the babies to be born. All the guys huddle together in a giant circle, with the eggs sitting on their feet, covered by their downy undersides, wind swirling snow around them. Gradually, the penguins shift their formation, so that those on the outside make their way in, and those on the inside move out. They do this dance for a couple months, all so they can share the heat of their bodies equally, all for the babies. This stands out to me, as a human woman, because so much of early infant care (not to mention nine months of pregnancy) is the responsibility of the females. There's not much for the dads to do. Back to the penguins. We tend to think of animals as beneath us, since they probably aren't capable of complex thought and certainly have no verbal expression of language. But those guys huddle together and distribute their warmth evenly...why? Because they are a self-less species? Because they care about the survival of their neighbor's egg just as much as their own? Imagine if the penguins didn't share the heat. Imagine if those at the center said, "Nah, I'm real toasty here in the middle. I'm not scooting to the outside so someone else can have a turn here." The penguins on the outside would die. The eggs would freeze. The ladies would return after a few months of hunting and find...a smaller huddle of penguins than they left? Or would any of them be alive? As the outer penguins stopped contributing their warmth, the next ring would go, and then the next, and then the next. The group needs every member to contribute in order for them all to live, in order for the next generation to break through their shells. These birds live in the harshest environment on earth, and its only because of their communal warmth that they can make it.
Ask yourself if you are in a community. Are you sharing your heat? Are you keeping those around you warm, or are you standing alone? People in social support communities live LONGER than those who are isolated. So find a support group. Get involved. And don't just stand in the middle, hogging the heat. Once you have warmed yourself, start scooting out, letting others in. All it takes is opening your eyes, opening your doors. We need each other, just like the penguins.
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