Listening To His Sonar-like Quack
Please note that this is a work in progress. The running title for my manuscript is Finding Satori Within Nature. There are currently 14 chapters being edited. I will attempt to post the following chapter within 2 weeks.
Thank you for your collective interest.
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The Water Journal: Part Two
A week of work has passed. J______ has invited me to join in a road trip to go see his sister in Maryland today. He is very excited to see her. She is cooking mouth-watering African cuisine. To be honest, I can’t picture what that means, but I’m about to drive us up Interstate 95 for a few hours to find out!
I may not know French, yet I accept the flow of words to be beautiful. Especially when siblings unite again through it. J______ was visibly desiring the brisket as it was brought out from the kitchen. I sat patiently in silence experiencing the splash of various tropical fruits and root vegetables. I smiled every now and then to let them know I felt welcomed and was eating happily. What a lovely meal.
Since we’re here, we might as well stop by the nation’s capitol right? People are gathering around the White House as we park the rental and enter into a tourist area. The tall fence up front has been filled with pictures of victims who have fallen to police brutality. This isn’t the time to engage the numerous unmasked armored guard personnel who roam the streets. So, maybe a touristy photo in front of the Washington Monument and Smithsonian this morning will suffice.
There is a lot of blatantly white architecture here on the capitol grounds. The oldest buildings are strong enough to stand for a thousand years. We aren’t on a school trip, so hell, a leisurely pace is just what we’ll do. The combination of plantain, muskmelon, cassava, and mango juice from J______’s sis has kept us full for hours. Yet, a cold bright blue slushie on this sweaty sticky day might just be what we need for refreshment. As we both order a cone, I point out the three halls as a visual teaching reference, “Do you know the three branches of government?” We walk to the Capitol building and I try to answer as much history as I can to Mr. 50 Questions here. He honestly doesn’t know much, yet. I plan on quizzing him during our 60-hour work weeks to help prepare him for his upcoming citizenship exam. He is, unsurprisingly, actually absorbing the knowledge with interest. Alright, my shoulder hurts and we’re getting tired before our hours-long drive ahead of us.
I am taking several deep breaths in and out to let the world slow down in my hotel room. I want to reflect on where I am at in my Life in this moment. We hold these truths to be self-evident that…every citizen has the right to do laundry in peace. I am rereading our little excursion today while sitting atop the hotel washing machine. Washing one’s clothes while on the road can be an enjoyable affair if you befriend the overnight staff. The polite Indian immigrant behind the front desk is depicting the clay houses where he grew up. He shows me a picture of sheer-cliff mountains on his laptop of where he and his wife were married. Actually though, how amazing is this? I exchange an interested ear and share a smile while he talks. The nearby washer dings and I wish him a pleasant night shift.
. . .
A second week of work passes.
Breakfast has been eaten by the lads and a drive has been had. We have arrived at Shenandoah National Park! Shenandoah is a section of the Blue Ridge Mountains that has been protected from developmental destruction since 1936. There is no better tourist destination in Virginia to see wildlife. I read a sign about the park’s beginnings as the crew stretches out of the sedan. While on the cusp of economic recovery, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt allocated work grants for the Civilian Conservation Corps to build an excursion through the mountain range. The cliff road spans 109 miles (175 km). In the 1930s, people could start to afford automobiles. This park provided access to new adventures for millions of people. What a park.
We’re packing back into the Chevy Malibu and proceeding up the Skyline Drive. Overlooks are stationed intermittently atop the mountains to admire the untamed land. Boy is this a sight to be seen! There are wooden signs for the aptly named ‘gaps’ between peaks. An immense valley is revealed around a corner with millions of trees spilling out for miles. A flooded landscape of green is supporting any organism native to the area. And there she is folks, we’ve just seen ourselves a juvenile Black Bear (Ursus americanus).
The further we drive upwards, the fewer and fewer dots of buildings are seen in the distance.
Fewer and fewer still.
And now there are none. There is only forest for as far as the eye can see. We’ve pulled over to experience the wilderness in its full glory with a well-deserved hike.
. . .
Another week of work passes.
No road trip this weekend for me. The guys are headed to Virginia Beach for sightseeing and bar hopping. No breweries for me though, thanks, but no thanks. Just me, this pen, and the New York Times. I am curled up with a hot cup o’ tea ready to devour the newspaper and to get out a set of words I haven’t quite been able to bring to my tongue. Let me see if I can articulate the thought into written words.
A determined, adamant, and attentive focus allows us to be more progressive in elevating the dreams we’ve meant for our potential realities. Enjoyable and pondered hypotheticals can transition into conceivable and achievable productive frameworks. Simply announcing to our peers that we are going on a road trip is to suggest and lay out a goal set. Setting up a dedication to improve upon our social lives helps us to cultivate positive discoveries when there could otherwise be silence. The purveyance of this progression advances community structure in my opinion, generally as a whole, by improving the localized space for all to become healthier.
Woof, I probably lost a couple of you there. I just reread and re-edited it several times if you can believe it. Still not all the way there though. Not that I’ll bring it up at work again. I’m just glad it’ll stop pinballing back and forth in my head now. Regardless if it makes any meaningful sense, I’m glad to have written it down, because it makes more sense now to me. Before we move to our next client, I think I may take it easy, proactively pack, and get a full night’s rest. I’ll most likely be tomorrow’s sober driver bright and early!
When writing here in the silence of the Refuge, the distance upon which one hears other beings…is extended. A young couple is approaching, their pace is steadfast. As they pass, they hide behind their lenses and nervously make eye contact. He comments on the “sparse” picture opportunities. As if I am to automatically agree with them on this “dreary” day. They expect a colorful aromatic peony or a flashy celebrity Cooper’s Hawk to share with viewers online. I offer better luck to them and keep hidden the location of a dozen subtle white blooms near to their left.
A second couple after them strides by, slower. Their eyes are wandering upwards around the canopy, noticing quietly. They express themselves with hand-carved wooden staffs. Her eyes come down first and she offers a soft, “hello.” He nods and mouths the same. I offer a gentle smile and genuine eye contact.
The couple walks on
Bathing in the park’s solace
Aware of tree health
The Refuge helps to give pause and to refocus on the Oaks, Blue Jays, Blackberry bushes, and Yarrow plants. I’ve come to this land of elders to find peaceful distraction and to transcribe the Water Journal that contains my experience from my first business trip. I find myself with another chance to edit my collection of books. Even though I’ve been reediting old journals for a while now, I haven’t felt this immersed before. I’ve transcribed my Square, Quotes, Fire, Metal, and Royal journals all into notebooks while out here. This passage feels different. These most perfect days of the year, before the mosquitos arrive, have mostly been spent reconstructing and clarifying the year I served with the Conservation Corps of Minnesota and Iowa. During that experience, I learned daily journaling. I learned to motivate myself, declare self-worth, and construct the life plan that led to my hire, and the subsequent business trips that I’ve been on. I would love to share with you the Conservation Corps Journals once I finish completing the Water Journal. Ooh, this is so exciting. I have so much to share with you! For the time being, I want a bathroom break and a scene refreshment.
A trailhead sign displays photographs of Red-headed Woodpeckers (Melanerpes erythrocephalus) a couple of miles back. These beneficial birds’ existence is threatened due to the deforestation in this area. Square miles of their habitat have been wiped clean. Not damaged, destroyed. And there are no jobs to show for. A hideous bright orange pole in the clearing warns of a $5,000 slap in the face and up to a year in prison for any who protest and deface. The Koch Brothers pipeline is installed, efficiently extracting resources out of this ecosystem. A cowbird ironically decided to land on a pole as I was reading. Now that the enema has been inserted, the only flow of resources is outwards. These are their resources to rape I guess, not ours to live in, protect, much less respect.
A third set of friends are walking past on the trail. Now that the late morning sun has arisen, the holiday vacationers have arrived. They are conversing about parasitic insects. Bugs really do get a bad rap. To be an insect is to have a bite-sized niche. If one male ant in a community dies, not much in the gene pool is lost. If 1000 die, depending on the species, nothing may actually happen to affect their family. The colony will live on, so their perspective on Life is very different. A fly is less concerned for its own existence than they are for their species as a whole or for the queen. Ticks, however, survive by consuming others’ Life-force. They have a different individualistic drive for survival. If they fail to steal their lust-fueled fix for oil…ahem…for blood, then they will die. Bumblebees are on the opposite side of this spectrum of resource-taking. They buzz around, demonstrating to their brethren where the good pollen is on this side of the neighborhood meadow. If we want to learn to be more intrinsic and have more effective nondestructive methods of resource extraction, I say: study the bees.
I have hiked further beyond through the marsh into a forest, now that the daytime crowds are here. Since leaving the spot where I edited my trip to Virginia, I have found a Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum) to sit beneath. I am now beside a small lake. Moss is softly growing near bright green ferns who stretch out as far as they can while the warm/cool season is here. Muffled laughter from women passes by uphill. A chainsaw across the open air of a pond brings up the heads of a couple of swans that were napping upon the water. One of them continues to graze for fish while the other two slowly drift to sleep atop the still water. Maybe later during this Sun cycle, the birds will bump into the beaver dam sixty feet to the West.
The body of water has a gradual flow to it. A very subtle wind is painting the surface around. When focusing closer, black water skidders (from the Gerridae family) can be seen running for their lives. The fascinating little fellas dash away as my shadow looms over them like a titan over their planet. The surface tension is curving up wherever they put down their feet. How cool is that!
Be assured that most bugs don’t dare to bother us. We’re so used to dealing with the stabbing and stinging ones that many are forced to aggressively adapt to our desolate concretescapes. Listen, SOME bugs don’t even have the ability to bite us. The tiny little fellas laying eggs underwater here have no business meddling with the affairs of us gigantor land mammals. Their mandibles are much too fragile to pierce human skin. They would much rather prefer the little bits of decaying leaf matter that gather after the dust settles when we pass. The species of lake flies that have joined me in this hammock I’ve set up have no stingers or fangs. They are just harmless little darters snacking on leaves.
Wildlife will respect you if you show respect to them and avoid focusing on them. Unless it’s a pack of wolves, then obviously the circumstances are varied. Nonthreatening birds and fish and rodents and bugs and all the rest of the local food web participants will venture near to eat their lunch. This is only if we display to them that we do not want to have them for lunch or are somehow threatening their babies in any way. The Red-winged Blackbirds over my shoulder seem to not mind me at all and have been sitting a good 10 feet away undisturbed as I write this paragraph. They do not feel threatened. And if they did, there is plenty of time to scoot upwards to a nearby branch out of my reach. There is recognition from the male that I am not going anywhere anytime fast. I am merely sitting here minding my own business, feasting on another journal entry to edit.
Our Virginia project was completed. J______ and I are ready to drive a box-truck with our crew’s work material 812 miles west to Tennessee. 16 hours of conversation and music are to be enjoyed.
Cashiers are easy to strike up conversations for local noncommittal advice. A gas station attendant near our hotel in Germantown recommended a Japanese hole-in-the-wall for a good bowl of ramen at a decent price. I’ll check that out after visiting the park the grocery store clerk told me about.
Our business travels have brought us to Memphis for another round of profit earning that will span multiple weeks again. Our new 5-man crew has the rest of the day off to settle in before our 14-hour days start back up. I’m sitting, writing this in a hotel courtyard sipping on a cup of masala chai. A family is relaxing out here with a toddler who, by the by, is having one heck of a happy day. He dashes around on his newly discovered little legs saying da
dae
doe
DOH
du
dah
de!
Dah!
His grandmother and I have struck up a conversation while I write. She wants to quit her ‘divorce-induced’ nicotine addiction. Her phone never leaves her hand. As I gravitate her attention into actual responsive talking, she extinguishes the smoke. I tell her about perspective focussing and a phone-reduced life. She had hardly noticed the incredible trees shading us above because, “I’m always immediately sucked into my phone whenever I walk outside.” A smile grows on her face as I tell her about the writing I do, all the travels our crew has been doing, and my current view on Life. I recommend to her, respectfully, a glass of water and a shower as a diversion if she does actually want to give up cigarettes. She smiles back at me, considering my gesture.
The parking lot just beyond us, where her grandson fast approaches, is bordered by a groomed bike path with four types of bushes and a somewhat decent Elm/Pine canopy. I walked there earlier when I called a college friend and walked to the local natural foods grocer. The toddler’s caretaker happily catches up with him before he reaches the curb. They dance around and enjoy a couple of spurts of laughter. He stops though…
One hundred massive orange and black boxes rush past them, blowing out their hair every which way. They stare in amazement for a prolonged moment.
I wonder if he had ever comprehended the existence of trains before. The flabbergasted kid is making hooping noises as he is lifted up off the sidewalk. They wander back. I consider heading in for a sandwich and a tea refill. First, I will take a few minutes to close my eyes and soak in this afternoon breeze. There are no errands to run, no chores to catch up on, nor people to meet. When Monday morning comes tomorrow, the work week will commence. For now, I will relax.
After two weeks of work, the job is completed, and we board a plane back home to Minnesota.
Trumpeter Swans (Cygnus buccinator) spear their lunches in this fairly fine fishing spot. They pause to give awareness to a pair of geese flying overhead. The Canada Geese (Branta canadensis) are sending out an inquiry to these birds below to see if they can fish here undisturbed. An absence of fellow geese or a response from the cranes sends them further on their journey to a lake that does have an invitation.
The harmless lake flies have since gently claimed me as their feeding ground. All other species be damned! Oh man, how cool is this?! I didn’t even realize they were here while I was editing the Memphis entry. I didn’t even feel them! Their scouts must’ve called in the family, ’cause I count 42 on me. Just as the lesser fish swims around a shark, these flies have begun to clean me.
A swan calls out from above and receives a response of acceptance from the group below. As if to survey the area, he circles the lake looking for potential dangers. The black-eyed male swan and I make direct eye contact. He begins a set of cautionary honks directed at me. He has every right to do so. He is merely demonstrating his territory and threatening me to make sure I know the group is protected. As I look back up to the swan from this page, he settles into a chant. The other two males are now joining him. Each bird has their own set of specific tones. The alpha honker leads with two notes: one up, one down. When the second swan joins, he tunes to the lower tone. He is softer. The third joins in with a chordal note in between the first two. They repeat this three-note song slowly encroaching toward me until I look away. Then, ever so slowly, the honking becomes gradually quieter and quieter until they are finally accepting that I mean them no harm. The female swans remain asleep, undisturbed. The males go back to them realizing they can have all the Sunfish they want for all I care. The honking has ceased and the lake becomes still again.
A mating pair of ducks are taking this affirmation of peace to dip into the water from the Southwest corner. A male Ring-necked Duck (Aythya collaris) has a call that is much weaker than the five birds who feed across from them in the center of the pond. The swans are splashing to themselves without heeding the ducks any mind. The black crested male quietly quacks to the female proposing a dance. They swim in parallel straight into the water, gracefully maintaining eye contact. In her acceptance of his song, she stalls in the calm water, watching his every move and intently listening to his sonar-like quack. She swims up to him. He turns to face her. They create a perfectly matched set of circles in the water that now ripples outward and away. They swim back to the shore and duck away to find solace in each other.
The swans peek up their heads as I readjust in my hammock to watch the ducks waddle out of view. I’ve also startled a black squirrel who apparently was only two trees away. Mr. Alpha Honker has begun reciting his warning, but alas, he is alone this time. The flies have…holy mother of Gaia…the flies have doubled their population on their way to tripling now that this here large-skinned mammal is comfortable again. They are doing a fantastic job cleaning my leg hairs, and are gentle enough that I can’t even feel them. Great job guys. Unfortunately, these little buggers are impossibly fragile. No wonder these itsy folks don’t seem to hang around conifers. I bet the aroma from the phenologic resin to them must be like drinking essential oil. A simple poke of one on my forearm causes them to keel over limp. It’s as if…
…wait…
…what is happening?
The frogs have gone silent. Actually, so have the rodents. What’s causing the shift in…?
A swoosh of shadow slices suddenly across the forest floor. I look up in haste, glimpsing a silent dash of blue. Sound resumes as the Great Blue Heron passes. What a commanding presence from our local king.
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Copyright 2023 Casimir Curney. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
