Alone With Humans

Bark
Originally uploaded by Clownhouse III

It's easy, if you don't live in the country, to go days and weeks without animal contact.

Even for a nature lover like me, the reality of apartment living is that the places I do 'escape to nature' in, are generally well worn forest paths, or parks, or beaches, and it is seldom that anything more exciting than a seagull crosses my path.

I wonder what this does to us? Is it not strange to live in a world teeming with living things - cougars, slugs, porpoises, otters - yet live a life that fairly denies their existence?

Children are fascinated by animals, yet as we grow, we forget to imagine all the animals living LIVES around us, and see them in a narrow, limited sense: food, threat, nuisance, or pet. (To counteract this, please read the children's classic, "The Wind In The Willows").

Being home, surrounded by lush green places of my youth, I have lately been reminded of the presence of animals. There were puppies for sale at the market on Tuesday, and I nearly brought one home.

Then, yesterday afternoon, still trying to shake off the last remnants of the flu, I sat quietly by the pond on my parents' farm, writing. I wrote a little, then lay back to watch dragonflies skimming the surface. I wrote a little more, then investigated a turtle. A big, black snake slithered past my feet as I walked back to the dock, and I jumped, then laughed at myself. Looking up at the far field, I could see something yellow creeping quickly along. Through the telescopic lens I watched as a yellow coyote leaped into the air and pounced down onto something in the grass. He looked up as if he could sense me watching him and stared straight into the lens. I looked away out of a sense of propriety, and he slipped away over the crest of the hill.

It was an animal day. A rare, precious day in which I glimpsed a world larger than the mostly invented cares of my daily existence. I closed the laptop, leaned back, and opened my eyes wide, waiting to see what the world would reveal.