"A mood can be a mud puddle to be jumped over." --Jim Harrison
"The best way out is always through." --Robert Frost
I may be in the throes of a mid-life crisis. I am usually not a proponent of the "mid-life" crisis, as I am a staunch believer that life itself is one long crisis, occasionally interrupted by bouts of clarity. However, since I have never gone this long without the clarity part, there may be something going on. One evening a few months back, while I was complaining incessantly about my inability to figure out life, Greta commented that the universe was trying to tell me something. At the time I discounted her pronouncement as pithy advice from a twelve year old, but in my heart of hearts, I feared that she was correct. Ugh.
But what is the message? Is it that I take everything way too seriously ? Or is it that I don't take anything seriously enough? Is the universe trying to tell me that I am wasting time by not doing what I want to or should be doing? Is the communication that I ought to secede from society? Maybe all I need to do is buy new shoes and and the world will be righted. Could the universe be wanting me to get my nails done or lose twenty pounds?
Possibly the message is that I need to get over myself. Whatever the reason for the constant brain hammering I have been undergoing the last year or so, I am fairly sure this is at least part of what I am being told. The kicker of it is that I get the feeling I am not going to get it figured out anytime soon. I think that actually might be the point. Decades of confusion followed by death.
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In other news, the sun is shining today. I have missed a good deal of the Spring--everything is slow in February and then it moves way too fast for me to keep up with. When I suddenly realized that She was moving forward and not waiting for me, I tried my best to pay attention, but the time I have available to be outside is too limited for my liking. This year is the first I can remember in a very long time in which Spring didn't toy with us. It showed up in March and didn't disappear again--plants were up early, bloomed early, and in some cases, were finished before they would have even had buds in other years. And, like the idiot that I am, I kept thinking "You have time, no need to rush....the bloodroot doesn't bloom until the end of April, the lilacs don't bloom until May, nesting won't start until May....." And why did I think this? Because that's what the book says. And why did I not realize that weather warming early, trees budding early, and the world greening early means that everything will happen early? Because the book (whatever field guide to whatever species you'd care to consult) told me so. And that is exactly how there was a Woodcock tragedy and a tornado panic. Because I ignored what I knew to be true and instead chose to be instructed by information given by humans.
Problems resulting from this attitude:
1. While on a hike last week a student accidentally stepped on two American Woodcock fledglings.
2. While on the same hike we were almost exterminated by a tornado.
Woodcock, according to everything I have read over the years, do not begin nesting until late April or May. So what were they doing, at least three weeks old and foraging, when they should have been, at best, mere thoughts in the brains of the bird-gods? The local forest preserves don't even begin holding their annual "Woodcock Walks" (to observe the complicated and beautiful mating displays) until late April or earlyMay. Because I believed books and forest preserve people over what I was seeing, I never thought that birds might very well be on the ground and tending nests in the third week of April. Didn't even occur to me--even though everything I had observed about the season should have told me otherwise. For a normal person, observational ignorance such as this would not be bothersome. I don't expect 99% of the population to know when Woodcock usually nest, and I certainly don't expect them to take all the early Spring-signs into account and thus assume this 'early-blooming' will extend to all species of flora and fauna. 99% of the population can do math and is able to understand all kinds of things I don't get, so it's okay (not really, but for this diatribe we'll say it is) that they don't know about Woodcock. I, on the other hand, being completely useless in most practical matters, and touting myself as a naturalist (albeit self-taught and self-proclaimed) should know better. And that is how the world now holds two fewer American Woodcock. I can't say any more than that.
The tornado incident was no less stupid, but possibly funnier, although it took me a few days to realize it had even happened. Students were spread out in the prairie, journaling and enjoying the warmth of the sun, when the tornado tower (located God knows where, but loud enough to be heard for miles) began its announcement that there was a tornado in the area and that anyone withing hearing distance should immediately take cover. It also instructed us that we should not call 911 and that this was an emergency. While outwardly I showed no sign of concern, mentally I was in a panic. Tornado warnings/watches, in my family, usually are the first signal to go outside and strain for a glimpse of death and destruction. We're not go-to-the-basement people by any means. However, 44 students in the middle of a prairie, with only bikes for transportation, (we were roughly 6 miles from school) is another matter. Yet...I saw the sky. Cerulean. No clouds. No wind. Nothing anywhere on any horizon to betray the perfect day that it appeared to be. But the tornado man said a tornado was in the area so there obviously was something lurking to make him say such things. I also knew that the test announcements are only made on the first Tuesday of the month, and as this was not either of those days, I knew that he was not joking. I discounted what I saw, felt, and heard, in favor of what the electronic tornado man said. Screw observation, there's a loudspeaker issuing a warning. Thank heaven for Naomi, once again, in keeping me grounded. ( "I wouldn't even believe it was going to rain if they told me so....".)
In each of these cases, I ignored, nay spurned, instinct, intuition, and simple natural observation. I listened to the tornado man and I believed the field guides. This leads me to yet another depressing and startling conclusion about modern humans and our lack of connection to the natural world. We choose technological means, rather than natural means, even when we know better, to guide our behavior. Things were obviously not always this way, but here we are. Or at least here I am.
So, all this being said, it is possible that I've been misinterpreting the directives I have been receiving from the cosmos. I thought they were telling me to go outside, look at some plants, talk to the birds, find a great rock. But maybe not. Maybe Greta was right. So I might try my hand at math. Or marketing. If the universe would get a loudspeaker, it would certainly make things easier for me.
