January
2020
One
afternoon, I take a walk to an old neighborhood. I want to see if the alley is
still grassy and magical the way it was in my childhood. The sun shines down but
there’s a chill wind so I pull my jacket in tight and zip it up. A flock of
birds signs a jagged signature across the pale blue of the sky. Chicken
scratch. Even though it’s too early for honeysuckle or bluebonnets the dandelions
are blooming and the winter grass is still green in places.
There’s
a line in the introduction to Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac that says, “There
are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot.” Followed shortly
by this, “For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more
important than television, and the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as
inalienable as free speech.” (page xvii)
Having
done much of my recent work inside, I’ve become itchy for the wild. At the
least for some fresh air. For the mysterious patterns that swirl in the thin water
of the creek. For the fluff and texture of clouds. For the sound of birds
prepping for their spring concerts. For the nearly extinct croak of amphibians.
For the woodwind sonatas of the cicadas. For the lullaby of the trees and the
wind that puts me, if not directly to sleep, to rest.
It
feels good to stretch my legs. Occasionally, I look up for any geese. Not
really expecting them. Just on the lookout. For Leopold has called them to my
mind. Instead of geese, a songbird calls out some notes. I stand in the middle
of the sidewalk and locate it high up on a barren branch, singing its song into
possibility. A wild thing creating musical magic in the crisp Texas air. A
promise that spring will come. A promise that new life will begin. A promise of
hope. What would we be without hope?
As I
leave the songbird behind me, I keep my eyes open for a pasque-flower. I’ve
never seen one. Not that I know of or not that I remember. But it’d be a
marvelous find, I imagine. Still, although the birds are singing of spring, it
might be too early for pasque-flowers. It might not even be the right growing
zone for that particular bloom. I don’t really know those kinds of things. My
grandmother once taught me to identify Indian Paintbrushes, Black Eyed Susans,
and Poison Ivy. She sat next to me on the deck of their house in the country
and taught me to hear the distinctive songs of the Whipoorwhil and the Bobwhite.
After I’d dusted my socks with sulfur to ward off chiggers, on a trek through
the woods she showed me the tracks of deer in the mud.
Later,
in another place, I learned to track coyote, wolf, moose, bear, rabbit, squirrel,
cat, deer, elk, and birds. To follow those tracks at any rate. To recognize
them on the pristine canvas of snow, to understand them in the dark mold of mud.
That place where I learned to live around wild things and to feel a bit wild
myself.
The childhood
alley does still have grass. I walk it trying to appear natural, casual,
neighborly, as if looking for geese or childhood magic is a normal thing to do.
Preparing my story if someone questions me, “I grew up here.” or “My sister and
I used to run barefoot in this alley.” or “Have you ever seen a pasque-flower?”
I walk the length of the alley, feeling for the residuals of magic, of
childhood, of memory. They’re there, faintly, but there. There’s the neighbor’s
fence which used to have the best honeysuckle blossoms. There’s the house I
lived in. The backyard I played in. The fence I climbed to get out of the yard
and into the alley is gone. The garage roof I used to climb up and jump off of
is gone, the roof and the garage itself gone. Gone away with all the children
perhaps. For where are all the children now? Why aren’t they running down this
alley? Who is teaching them about birds, flowers, and tracks? Who is
encouraging them to join the minority who cannot live without wild things? Who
is teaching them to keep the grass long and the dandelion blossoms uncut and
unpicked for the bees?
Who
is teaching them to love the wild things?
The
songbirds don’t know the answers to my questions. Nor do the trees. Nor do I.
Even so, I’m more at peace now having touched the past and having trod through
the comfort of grass. I walk myself back to the present still under the winter
sun, still with a promise of spring in the air, still with a promise of hope
for both the future of the children and the wild things.
