Reflections - Becoming Part of Nature

View from the Grassy Knoll

Metaphorically crossing my fingers and toes, I set the phone timer for thirty minutes. Inserting the phone into the folding chair’s cup holder, I leaned back and willed myself to do nothing.

Gene Ware, author and Presque Isle enthusiast, inspired the idea for this adventure. His face had glowed like a sunrise over Lake Erie when he’d explained his December 2016 GoErie blog. “I sat on a bench in the woods at Presque Isle and did nothing.” 

Doing nothing didn’t thrill me. After a walk around Wells Wood with my daughter in the 1990s, she and I had sat on a bench in front of the old cabin. My legs kicked. I started a conversation.

“You don’t know how to relax,” her surprised voice said.

I can relax—reading a book, stretching for yoga poses, putting pieces into a jigsaw puzzle. But Gene’s idea of doing nothing?

His eyes had sparkled. “I became part of nature. A chipmunk walked across my shoe as if I wasn’t there.”

Gene’s enthusiasm and the idea of a cute critter crossing my shoe because I’d become part of nature enticed me for years. Blending into nature for large creatures did not. When I venture into the woods alone, I hang a jumbo jingle bell on my belt to avoid surprising an ambling black bear. Yet, if I failed to do nothing because of imagined dangers, I would be a wuss. I didn’t want that. I’d do nothing. This summer.

While my husband and I walked under the tree canopy along our dirt road the morning of July 13, I obliquely tested the imagined dangers on him.

“I need your help selecting a spot for a Joy of Nothingness adventure.” I glanced at Spence. He stared at a female Diana Fritillary flitting over Queen Anne’s Lace. “I want to sit in the woods and do nothing. Is there a log across Deer Creek I could sit on, or should I take a chair to the grassy knoll?”

Waiting for his admonitions, that’s dangerous or don’t forget your bear bell, I bit my lip.

He said neither.

“Do nothing?” He guffawed then coughed to curb his merriment. “The grassy knoll would be perfect.”

Okay. He wasn’t worried about bears. I wouldn’t either.

That afternoon, under a forget-me-not blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds, I lugged gear for doing nothing. Though I only needed the canvas chair,  I packed a tote bag with my cell phone to time the vigil, a spiral notebook and pen in case I got inspired, and my camera. If a great blue heron or a pair of mallard ducks flew upstream above Deer Creek, I could postpone the nothingness adventure for another day and take their pictures. I left the bear bell at home.

Grass grew calf high on the grassy knoll. I settled the chair behind a row of Christmas Ferns and sat. The chair tilted slanting me toward the drop off to Deer Creek. I pushed the chair further back, sat, and tipped. Gene didn’t have this hassle with his park bench. Repositioning the chair onto ground with the least slant, I pulled the phone out of the bag, set the tote on the ground, and sat. Time to do nothing.

The screen on my phone darkened.

Moments passed like millennia.

If this got excruciating, I could always quit after fifteen minutes.

Checking the phone is doing something.

Maybe I could breathe in rhythm with the gusting breeze.

Breathing is doing something.

I’ll listen for rustling bushes to warn me that a bear is on the way.

Worrying is doing something. Just relax!

My body melted into the chair. I rubbed the pad of my thumb against the other thumbnail.

Sky

Maple leaves swished overhead. Deer Creek babbled over rocks. A wood thrush sang its flute-like melody with trills.

My calves got a twitchy-creeping urge to move.

If I wanted a chipmunk to scramble over my shoes, I dare not move them. Inside my shoes, I rocked my feet—toes to heel. 

Sunlight flickered through the treetops creating a kaleidoscope of shifting greens in the leaves. Branches bobbed and twirled in an arboreal ballet.

The more I relaxed in the chair, the more my legs wanted to party. I gritted my teeth.

A Monarch flitted along the creek bank, and a Cabbage White Butterfly flapped helter-skelter between maple trunks.

I had to move. Restless legs, the reason doing nothing doesn’t agree with me, made me march in place.

A bullfrog by the creek didn’t see my moving feet and bellowed its raspy-twang.

By the time the Cabbage White made its second dizzying trip past the grassy knoll, my legs calmed to urges to move rather than demands. And nature’s theater electrified my senses—the breeze bounced my hair, the light dimmed under drifting clouds, and cheeps harmonized with distant twitters.

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP. The cell phone shattered nature’s calm.

So soon?

I made it?

Jumping out of the chair, I pulled the camera out of the tote bag. As I stretched my legs, I photographed the views from the grassy knoll. I didn’t pull out the notebook. Nothing could wait.

Gathering the gear, I giant-stepped to the log house and imagined the pleasure of shucking fresh peas.

Spence met me on the porch. “How’d it go?”

Should I admit my internal noisiness and fascination with nature’s drama? “Nothing happened.”

He chuckled. “That’s what I thought.”

My nothing adventure will hardly inspire anyone like Gene Ware’s enthusiasm inspired me. Without getting restless legs, I can relax with yoga poses and absorb nature on quiet woods walks. However, I did find a use for Gene’s Joy of Nothingness.

This past Wednesday, like most mornings, Spence stopped tapping keys on his computer and said, “Okay. Ready when you are.” (Translation—time for a walk.)

I gave him my standard answer. “I need to change.”

In the bedroom slipping out of my yoga sweats and into my RYNOSKIN, bug protecting shirt, I could hear Spence walking around the great room greeting the cats. “Nice tummy, Mr. Ande . . . Looking good, Mr. Gilbert . . . Mr. Rills, my buddy!”

While tying my shoelaces, the banter changed to computer keys tapping.

Walking to the great room, I called, “Ready.”

“I’ll only be a moment.”

Waiting on the deck, I did nothing. No worries about large critters or extended restless-leg-challenging passage of time. I stood as still as the pots holding the petunias and pansies.

Inside, Spence clumped into boots and scraped his dresser drawer open to get a T-shirt.

A chipmunk scampered up the deck ramp.

I did nothing.

It flicked its tail and stared at me.

I’d become part of nature.

Spence tramped onto the deck. “Ready.”

The critter dashed away.

One of these times I wait for Spence on the deck, I’ll do nothing, and a chipmunk might scamper across my shoes.

Christmas Ferns

Reflections - The Red-Tail Mystery

Bird's-Foot Trefoil

The red-tailed hawk gave me clues, but I didn’t connect them until after he deadened my hopes. 

The hawk left his first clue the morning of June 19. 

Because my husband needed to write a flier about foods that remove lead from children’s bodies, I left Spence at his computer and power-walked under the trees shading West Creek Road. Gravel crunched under my feet. On the neighbor’s berm, the first bird’s-foot trefoil of the season bloomed and slowed my pace.

A whoosh-thrash-swoosh sounded by our apple trees behind me.

Pivoting, I gawked.

A red-tailed hawk flapped broad wings and spread crimson tail feathers. In retrospect, I guessed the hawk was male because of his size—closer to owl size than eagle size. Flying three feet above Spence’s tractor path, the hawk perched on the log pile at the end of the south garden. He folded his wings against his body.  

I forced myself to close my mouth before a punkie flew inside. Maybe the hawk would consume the chipmunk that nibbled my everbearing strawberries.

The next clue came the following morning.

With Spence beside me, I panted up Creek Road hill, swatted deer flies off his back coming down, then rounded the intersection of Creek and West Creek. 

A bird sat in the middle of the dirt road fifty yards away. No grabbing nor gobbling. The bird just sat.

Spence squinted. “It could be an owl. It’s large. Or a hawk.”

“Why would an owl be out in the middle of the day?” I regretted not lugging my camera so I could observe the bird through the zoom lens. “And why would a hawk sit in the middle of the road?”

The bird flapped broad wings, spread a crimson tail, and disappeared into the woods. 

We grinned at each other and said in unison, “Red-tail.”

Maybe the hawk would devour the squirrel that gnawed on our house in an attempt to nest in the logs.

Two days later, Spence got the third clue before me.

Preparing for his first meeting in Cleveland since March 12, he walked through the north garden to the garage. 

I rinsed egg shells, for a tomato plant supplement, and set them on the kitchen window sill to dry.

The tractor rumbled out of the garage basement. Spence had loaded folding chairs in the bucket for an outdoor meeting at Luke Easter Park. The tractor rumbled around the garage, chairs clanged onto the truck bed, and Spence returned. “Call your next blog ‘Adopted by a Red-Tail.’”

“What are you talking about?”

“The hawk’s perched on the woodshed. He didn’t move when I walked past him or drove the tractor near.”

I looked through the kitchen window. “I don’t see him, but I can’t see the front of the shed. A blue spruce is in the way.”

Spence stepped onto the porch then stuck his head inside. “The hawk’s still there. Get your camera.” Spence closed the door, locked me in, and left for Cleveland.

Would the hawk still be three if I walked out? Animals had a way of vamoosing when I appeared with a camera. Grabbing it, I walked to the porch. 

Red—I might as well give the hawk a name since he adopted us—perched on the woodshed roof and gazed into the garden. 

I tiptoed across the porch and down the steps. Hoping not to disturb Red, I walked along the path on the other side of the garden. When I reached the spot opposite the woodshed, Red stared at me. I stared at Red. 

Red-Tailed Hawk

Since he didn’t move, I raised the camera and pressed the shutter release button. Click. Step, click. Step, click. Step, click. Edging closer and closer, I congratulated myself on finding another animal—besides a wood turtle and an opossum—that I could photograph. 

Red’s hooked beak and sharp talons halted my progress. Red may not have minded if I got closer, but I did. Besides, I had plenty of photos. Resting the camera on my chest, I feasted my eyes on the noble creature.

Red could scarf up voles that burrowed into my blueberry cages and snakes that wriggled across garden paths. Red could shriek kee-eeeee-arr when he circled above the field. And maybe he’d raise a family in a Wells Wood treetop next spring.

Red’s last clue deadened my hopes but saved me from breaking the law.

Two nights after I named Red, we had a thunderstorm that broke an eighteen day dry spell. The next morning, Spence returned from his garden walk-around with drooping shoulders and an ashen complexion. “Red’s dead.”

“What do you mean?” Stupid question. I knew what the words meant but wanted to deny them—the first stage of grief.

“Red’s on the ground near the woodshed." Spence adjusted his tractor cap. “It must have just happened. The body’s intact.”

I reached for Spence’s hand. “Will you go with me? I want to see him.”

Walking beside Spence, I finally understood Red’s clues.

Hawks soar high in the sky. Red flapped low to the ground.

Hawks perch on telephone poles or in treetops. Red sat on West Creek Road.

Hawks fly when people approach. Red watched Spence and I approach him.

Red had been dying. He’d adopted Wells Wood for a peaceful place to rest.

When we reached Red, I let go of Spence’s hand and stood in silence to honor the hawk that had honored us with his presence.

Red lay on his side.

Not a single fly hovered.

His dark brown back feathers and rich red tail feathers glistened as if he’d preened himself moments before.

My fingers itched to pluck one of the vibrant feathers for a keepsake, but Red’s majesty prevented me. I couldn’t defile him, and memories of him would never die. “Will you move him to the woods?” 

Spence rubbed my arm. “When you go inside.”

Inside I turned on the laptop, searched the internet for red-tailed hawk feathers, and gasped. Because women adorned their hats with feathers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Congress passed the Migratory Bird Act—no collecting feathers whether you killed the bird or found the feather on the ground.

I visualized Spence easing Red onto a shovel, carrying him into the woods, and laying him among Christmas ferns.

Red will nourish forest creatures.

Death in nature renews life.

Red-Tailed Hawk