March 4, 2024

The Thin Current

My wife and I woke up feeling tired. Bodhi, one of our dogs, kept waking up and shaking in the night. Then, he would whimper until someone got up and put a blanket over him. Bodhi was always cold and developed a habit of sleeping completely covered. He usually slept through the night, but last night he was restless, so this morning my wife and I were rest-less.

This morning, I drove to the mailbox, which is on the main paved road. One of our neighbors was supposed to leave a trail camera in our mailbox so I could look at it. It was not working properly, and they wanted to see if I could fix it, because they were worried someone was riding four-wheelers on their property and watching their home. I’ve heard the motors running in the evenings, and last year, I thought they were on my property, but when I went out to the area, the noise came from well north of our properties. It seemed the sparse winter woods let the sounds of the engine travel, making the riders seem closer than they were.

The mailbox was empty, so I drove back to the house. On a farm field to the south was a large swath of land, now full of green grass. There was a grounded flock of Canadian geese feeding on the property, probably pulling worms and insects from the soft ground. Turning onto the dirt road that leads to my house, all the white flowers hanging from the trees mesmerized me. I remembered this time last year and how pretty it was. We were back to this memorable part of nature’s cycle. Trees of various species would bloom for the next three or four weeks. For about three days, the property will smell like someone sprayed a floral perfume in the air. I’m looking forward to it.

This morning, I took my morning walk through the woods. On my way to the trailhead, I saw the bare skins of watermelon rinds sitting on the forest floor. The deer's ability to scrape the watermelon right down to the very edge of the rind and perfectly clean the meat of the fruit impressed me. I would have to grab some more watermelons the next time I was in town.

I continued along the trail until I arrived at the northwest corner of the property. There sit two rocks on the top of a hill. The rock closest to the trail is just large enough to sit on with a small chair. As I approached the area, a large herd of deer spooked, and I watched them bolt, powerfully gliding down the hill, across the creek and into the woods at the opposite tree line. I have seen deer tracks where they crossed and captured videos of them in this area on trail cameras. This, however, was only the second time in two years that I saw deer here during the day. 

A year ago, I spotted a fawn and her mother bedded down in the tall grasses. Today, the herd, made up of nine or ten large deer, marked my second sighting. It was amazing to see how fast these beautiful creatures move. Only five or six seconds passed from when I saw the herd spook to when they disappeared into the trees, easily covering one hundred and fifty yards of rough terrain.

It started raining around lunch time. The sun took refuge behind the clouds, and the afternoon’s attitude changed from an energetic spring day to one of calm and serenity. The forest was beautiful in the rain, whether you’re walking through it or stealing glances of her from your office window. Despite the shower, I went back into the forest in the evening before sunset. There, I took photographs of various flowers, tree bark patterns, and small vines hanging from trees. It was a pleasant walk in the soft rain. Today was Monday for me, but for the forest it was just another day during earth’s 4.543 billion years.

Sometimes, when I think about the immensity of time that came before us, and that will pass after us, I feel like we are fruit flies, who have notoriously short life spans. Although a long life feels like a long time, it is a blinking of an eye on nature’s timescale. When I contemplate earth’s immensity, it humbles me. Nature was so old, and our lives were so short. And yet, my birth, despite the universe’s inhospitable conditions, was also immensely remarkable. So, even though our time here is brief, it is significant. And we should measure what we do each day and how we choose to spend our time accordingly. Life is too short and precious to waste on thoughtless cycles and habits. We have to work hard to stay awake and sober, so that we can live the human experience in its rich fullness.

This all reminded me of a quote from Henry David Thoreau about our time on earth versus earth’s timeline. He wrote, “Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.”