In honor of the Women’s Marches taking place around the United States, today’s description is of a world famous animal activist and primatologist.

Sitting down her head at an angle she smiles, wrinkles framing her eyes. Her greying hair tied up its usual ponytail so it’s out of her face. A chimpanzee rests its head on her shoulders. Looking at peace but with a vast wisdom in his eyes, he gazes out into the vast unknown. She is as comfortable with him as he is with her. A relationship between species created by her special magic.

I feel a great kinship to this woman because I have an affinity for animals too. As a child of about five years of age, in the winter, I would put birdseed in my mittened hand, hold it out and wait for birds to come eat from it. Usually kids my age wouldn’t have the patience for it but I would be enthralled at the sight of the first bird landing on nearby branches. I would stand as still as I could watching it as it looked me up and down trying to decide if my hand was a safe enough perch for it to land and eat. Feeling its little claws wrap around my finger as he bent down to grab a seed and then then the light push as he took off again made my heart soar as high as they did as they carried the seeds away.