Adventures In The Not So Great Outdoors

There’s something about doing yardwork that gets me thinking. Perhaps it is just my mind telling me I should get out of the sun and back to my writing. It’s just that nature in any degree is inspiring and as a writer I get so little of it.

I’m not a big fan of bugs, especially when they are inside my house. Oh sure, I do try to shoo them out the door if at all possible, but I’m not above smashing them when necessary. When they enter the house they become intruders, and thus they become my enemies.

But I don’t see why we need to be natural antagonists. Bugs have their role to play, and in the long run they are probably much healthier for the planet than we humans. Which is why once outside my home I suddenly feel as though I am the interloper in their domain. I was picking weeds from my driveway today and as I did so, I seemed to cause a great deal of commotion among the little creatures that lived within the cracks. A colony of ants was all in a flutter as I ripped a handful of green growing plants from over the top of their little ant colony, and I couldn’t help see things through their little ant eyes. I placed myself in their little ant shoes and saw the catastrophe as something comparable to an earthquake or tornado. Their little ant world was being turned topsy-turvy and I couldn’t help wondering how this would seem to them. This event might someday be described by grandmother and grandfather ant to their little ant grandchildren as something comparable to Pompeii, might be written about and discussed for ant millennia to come.

Perhaps I anthropomorphize their behavior a little too much. Bugs surely experience things differently than human beings, but on some level it must have been traumatic. Not the ants only but some smaller version of bugs I know only as rolly-pollies were evicted from their homes like old ladies living where Donald Trump wants to build a parking lot. It left me questioning what it means to be a homeowner.

See, the whole idea of homeownership is merely a convention created by humans. Nobody owns anything, we merely inhabit a piece of earth for a while. Like every other creature on God’s green Earth, we’re just passing through. We don’t own the earth, we are part of it. From it we are born and to it we will return. Along the way we share the ride with everyone and everything we encounter. But we’re not in charge and we don’t really own anything.

It’s just our tiny little egos don’t know that. Believing we are something, we then need to feel we are something more than that little thing we actually are. We are not simply our corporeal body, we are the domain we inhabit. The very earth outside our abode is an extension of us, each blade of grass an expression of who we are. They need to appear orderly, in the same way we need to have our hair combed neatly so the world knows we are sanitary and worthy of human interaction.

I think it stems from worrying about what other people think of us. We have such a deep feeling of insecurity that we spend more time worrying about the perceived opinions of our neighbors than we do thinking about why we do what we do. The second we start caring more about how our lawn looks to others than our relationship to the nature closest to us, we have surrendered our autonomy as individual agents. So while we stake a claim to a larger area of ground that we believe we are in control of, what we are actually doing is making our domain smaller. Our lawn is no longer ours since we cannot do with it as we will.

So we douse our lawns with chemicals, in the same way men in the 40’s greased their hair or women in the 80’s sprayed theirs into submission. It was not bad enough that we waged war on nature on a broad front, we now feel compelled to dominate it on a micro level as well. The actual health of our yards be damned, it was how it looked that was important.

The problem is that we still seem to feel we need to master nature, rather than live with it, be a part of it. We are nature fascists, determined to dominate rather than coexist. And dominance, after all, is a very natural tendency, in species other than just man. But it is a primitive notion, something perhaps suitable for chimpanzees and gorillas but not for a species capable of creating nuclear weapons and global warming. At some point, we as a species must learn a different way to view our relationship with the outside world if we want to continue to enjoy the privileged position we now have.

As man encroaches more and more upon the last unspoiled portions of the world, it is more than ever important that we regard the nature within our small realm of influence with respect and reverence. In these encounters with the smallest of God’s living creations, we must cultivate a true appreciation for life in all its forms. For all that we wish to feel superior and dominant, such an attitude does not in the end lead to satisfaction and happiness. It requires an initial feeling of insignificance on our part to let go of such notions, but in the end we are deeply awarded for doing so. For in the admission that we do not own anything, we discover that we are in fact part of everything. I cannot imagine any possession that could provide as much happiness as that revelation.

Why I Write

I spent the better part of my Sunday playing around on the internet, avoiding the attempt of putting words down into a physical form. And then the words seemed to flow and this is part of what I recorded. This is why I write, to discover that such things exist inside of me. Not sure how well it translates to the reader, but perhaps with a little polish...

     Nevertheless, Doug lifted the old metal latch that was the occupants’ only protection from what was outside their sanctuary and slowly opened the door of rotted wood. Its rusty hinges resisted, as did a certain warning in his heart. But as his eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw a small human form lying curled up on an undersized bed in the corner of the almost empty room. Doug was full of the fear that the suffering of another of God’s creatures could bring upon a man. He wanted to look away, to say that there was nothing he could do for him. He wanted just to forget, to flee and save himself. But he had a certain amount of pride, a degree of teaching from his parents that dictated that this is not how he should act. He was a human and he would act like one. He was not an animal, deaf to the suffering of others. And besides, even animals had empathy for others, he had witnessed it himself. Swallowing his own fear, he reached out to connect with another living soul.

     “Are you okay?” Doug asked into the darkness. The uninterrupted whimpering of the child did not in any way show that he had been heard. Not having any idea what to do, Doug approached the bed and knelt down to the figure lying upon it. The smell of sweat and overripe hay hit his nostrils, the shivering of the child palpable from the short distance he maintained. He recognized him now as the child in the field the other evening, the one who had cut his hand on the sharp blade of the sugar cane. His hand was still bandaged with the dirty rag his mother had torn from her dress. Doug was afraid to touch him, both for himself because it might increase his closeness to suffering and because he might frighten him. Instead of touch he used words.

     “Don’t be afraid. I know what he did, know what Delavois did. I won’t let him hurt you,” Doug promised, knowing his promise to be an empty one. He was helpless to stop Delavois from doing anything he wanted, but Doug knew he would have to find a way to stop him, knew that helplessness was not acceptable. This would have to end and he was the one who would have to put a stop to it. He didn’t know how but it somehow felt that his will would open a rift in reality to permit it. Delavois’ power, after all, was a rift in reality, a wrongness crying out to be righted. Suddenly, this purpose placed itself above all others in Doug’s mind, higher than the urge for self-preservation that was the default setting for all living things. Here, in the darkness, amidst the suffering of a child bereft of his mother, Doug discovered something so beautiful he almost wept at the realization of it. It was the opposite of what had Delavois had gripped so tightly, that fear that so much shaped mankind’s reality. It was a truth at least as powerful as all the darkness and corruption that surrounded him.