place entry 8

I was sorely tempted to range beyond the boundaries of my property and head to the broad, open wetland that is the heart of Hartley Nature Center. The nature center is across my neighbor’s property, a five minute walk. I was relishing the descriptive possibilities, the mounded beaver dam, the bent and swaying grass, the meandering stream. The open and expansive wetland, ringed by hills, gives one the feeling of truly being away from it all.

But then I saw the ducks. They waddled to the edge of our yard, as they have the past two springs, and sat down, webbed feet disappearing beneath them. Mallards. The male with a striking green head, yellow beak, brown breast, and mottled white body. The female, slightly drabber with a sort of camouflaged array of brown feathers. Every year they herald the true arrival of spring, finding a quiet corner of our property to sit and rest.

After a few minutes they waddled back off into the brush. My boys and I decided to look for them. Soren, age 5, insisted on bringing his spear—a long wooden branch with a fork duct taped to the end (long story), even though I implored him that we were just out to look at the birds, not to disturb (or kill) them. We ducked around our pitched and leaning garage, as stealthily as we could. Gingerly parting thorny plants, we came upon the stagnant little pool, and there they were.

‘Shhhhhhhh’, Soren whispered. Eli pointed wildly, but miraculously did not make a sound. We hunched down to get a better look. They were within ten feet of us. The female’s head was rooting about underwater, in search of food. The male, its luminous green head turning back and forth, was keeping watch.

The three of us watched, silent and transfixed. What an odd little patch of the earth to hunker down in, I thought. The stagnant water is barely ten feet around, tucked behind a decaying garage, surrounded by brambles. Given the wetland of the Nature Center close by, our little swamp seemed like a sub-par choice. But they have claimed it as their own, as have we.

As we padded silently away, Soren turned to look back. Overcome with the pent up silence, he finally gave in to his impulses. He advanced a few steps towards the swamp and let out a loud whoop. The ducks took to the air and flew away.

prompt entry 8

I have learned to slow down. I have learned to sit still. I have learned that the winter woods contain marvels. I have learned that blue moss grows on some of the trees on my property. I have learned that I don’t need to be gone for a month to be recharged by the natural world; a few focused minutes might even suffice. I have learned to listen, to look, to quell the internal chatter that draws a curtain between myself the world. I have learned that my trees have burls. I have learned that my little parcel of earth is big enough to pique my curiosity for years, provided I pay attention. I have learned that others find the notion of escaping to the wilderness to be an archaic, worn cliché. I have learned that I still want to escape to the wilderness. I have learned that blighted, overlooked landscapes can be rendered beautifully, but that such a rendering requires love and dutiful attention. I have learned, again, that my obsession with canoes is unbounded. I have learned that the sight of my own kids tromping about outside fills me with an unspeakable joy. I have learned that sometimes it is o.k. to rage and rant; I have learned that sometimes ranting defeats the purpose. I have learned that there used to be a river in L.A., and then there wasn’t, though there might be again. I have learned that one can write interestingly about nature in L.A. I have learned that I enjoy the lyrical, provided I get heaping doses of bedrock to anchor it. I have learned that my own interests tend towards the margins. I have learned Annie Dillard is a liar. I have learned that Updike’s characters have ‘burnished feces’. I have learned that I’d much rather sit with people face to face than communicate over the ‘interwebs’. I have learned that having to slow down and write out my thoughts crystallizes them in a way that blathering on in a classroom doesn’t. I have learned that I still miss the classroom. I have learned of a great many writers new to me. I have learned that those familiar to me still seem like old friends. I have learned that my ambitions are modest, though I may be feinting a bit. I have learned that an engaged instructor makes a lot of difference. I have learned to appreciate, to question, to defend, to defer, to speak up, to pipe down, to expand, to explore. I have learned. And for that I am thankful.

place entry #7

The snow is gone now. The bullfrogs are croaking in the swamp by the garage. Purple crocuses are pushing up from the earth, little cups of beauty in the drab, brown world. The trees are still bud-less and barren, though I’m on the lookout for new shoots. At the edge of my yard, past a tangle of brush at the edge of the swamp, sits a pile of garbage. There is a rusted out water heater, mottled and flaking; a Minnesota license plate from 1974, the year after I was born, which gives me a sort of carbon dating to the pile strewn about; a coil of rusty barbed wire, balled up like a tumbleweed; the remains of an old picket fence; broken glass, a green wine bottle half buried in the dirt, two tires, and a stack of moldering lumber.

Each spring I tell myself that I’m going to rent a dumpster and clean up the place, but for some reason I keep putting it off. The pile is out of the way and inconspicuous; you’d have to know it was there to find it. I wonder what prompted my great-aunt to discard things in the woods; she kept an immaculate garden, and planted row after row of flowers. The garbage in the woods seems inconsistent with what I’ve heard and know about her.

Some of the trash, I assume, predates the license plate, is of a time when our land was a working farm and garbage collection a city construct. The garbage, however unsightly, is in a sense a link to the past, and a link to my ancestors. It reminds me of a time when the land was worked and used, not just appreciated as an aesthetically pleasing place to sip coffee and gaze out the picture windows. Besides, would taking it to a landfill be any different? Maybe I’ll keep it here and see how long the earth takes to reclaim it all. As a reminder of our past, and our future.

prompt entry 7

My kids call it the ‘poking tree’; the old dead oak in the woods behind our house. The tree is thick enough that I can’t link my arms around it. Looking up from the base, its branches splay out to the sky, dwarfing the other trees in the immediate vicinity. There three ragged gashes at the base of the tree, the biggest about a foot wide, extending about 10 feet in the air. The heart-wood, in these exposed sections, has mostly decayed and spilled out in a saw-dusty pile around the base of the tree, which allows a clear view through the gaping holes. The remaining heart-wood is dried out and brittle; we reach in and dislodge large chunks; they are honeycombed and as light as Styrofoam.

Each time I go to the woods I half expect the tree to be toppled over and resting on the leaf strewn ground. The whole weight of the tree is dependent on the exterior bark, which is deeply ridged and fissured, about two inches thick. But it seems impossible that the tree can buck the wind with so little anchoring it the earth. Yet there it is every time, still upright, majestic at a distance, critically injured up close.

I think of our own lives, of the roots that we sink, and the foundations we use to help us reach skyward. Can we be similarly eaten away from the inside, whittled down to an exterior husk, and yet remain standing? Without exterior cracks, a means to survey the damage inside, do we have any way of knowing who is alive and growing, and who is already stunted and dead?

My kids grab sticks and poke at the holes in the tree. Sawdust spills out and falls to the ground. I want to grab a pile of sawdust, a hunk of honey-combed wood, the tree’s lifeblood scattered uselessly on the ground, and shout, ‘Don’t ever let this happen to you.’ But they are mere saplings, supple and strong, too young to be hollowed out and decayed. I let them take in the dappled sunlight, and hope my own looming shadow doesn't get in the way.

I grab a stick and join in the fun.