A Flash, Ahead of Creation

Perhaps they are of a time, as DH Lawrence says:

Before anything had a soul,

While life was a heave of matter, half inanimate,

This little bit chipped off in brilliance

And went whizzing through the slow, vast, succulent stems

But this year, they were late, by three days (from last year's entry). And I was impatient. I had filled and put out both hummingbird feeders almost two weeks ago, but it wasn't until today that The Girls and I saw the very first one. It appears that we may only have one or two right now - perhaps they were not in a hurry to move north, because of the warmer winter? - but soon the community will be thriving. I have learned that I can estimate how many hummingbirds we actually have: I count the number seen on the feeders at any one time and multiply by 6. That would suggest that in the height of summer, we likely have a community of more than 50 living in our nearby woods. And I'd say that's quite a lot.

The Nature of Technology

Before I began teaching my annual nature writing class online in Chatham's low-residency MFA program, I taught on-campus incarnations of the same course. One of the course requirements, then and now, was that students keep a nature journal, which has a long tradition in the nature writing genre. Students are asked to choose a single place and to visit it roughly weekly all semester, staying for at least twenty minutes each time, and then writing about their observations and ideas gathered while there; students also craft entries in response to directed prompts to accompany their place-focused entries. This is my favorite assignment of each semester, as I eagerly look forward to reading students' notes and ideas as they develop a relationship - sometimes positive, sometimes negative - to their individually chosen places.

With the transition to strictly online teaching of this course, I have necessarily had to adjust this project. In on-campus classes, students were asked to - gasp! - handwrite their entries in a paper journal. And the results were often astonishing. Now students keep nature blogs, because it would be very difficult to try to weekly read and evaluate the handwritten journals of students who are located all over the country (and sometimes abroad, such as this semester).

A former student friend recently scanned and posted to Facebook some of her journal pages - scattered throughout this entry - from that summer course five years ago.

And seeing these images again reminds me that, as much as I still enjoy this assignment even in blog form, as much as I feel the nature blogs are often just as inspired and as creative as the handwritten nature journals were, I miss that medium. A lot. J. gave me permission to share those images and some of her thoughts on keeping her nature journal that summer:

"Most of [these pages are] just musings on time spent in a community garden down the street from my house when I lived in Pittsburgh. I was taking a nature writing course, and one of the assignments was to choose one place, visit it often, and write while there. It was an amazing assignment. The act of sitting in a place for longer than I normally would and writing about it was a wonderful way to open my eyes to the many layers of beauty the garden had. Drawing became an extension of that, a way to still my mind and focus my attention on what I was surrounded by. The longer I was there, the more I wrote and drew, the more I could see. I couldn't believe how beautiful eggplants were in their various stages! One evening, just after sunset, I sat in front of a plant that had white bell-shaped flowers and started to draw it. The blossoms were closed when I began the sketch, but each time I looked up to capture another detail the blossoms were open wider. Whoa! So I stopped drawing and literally sat there watching these flowers open up before my eyes. No time lapse photography needed!"

Amazing stuff, really amazing!

A Return, Very Grudgingly

I've been missing for a long while, but not entirely of my own too-busy doing. Sometime between my last post here in July and this past December when I logged in again to post in preparation for the new semester's nature writing grad students, the Blogger automated software mistakenly detected this innocuous nature blog as *spam.* And, with no notification to me, via email or otherwise, that program went ahead and deleted the whole thing (I'm still wracking my mind to try to figure out what content in here would have suggested something nefarious or inappropriate). Apparently Blogger is so big now that it is impossible to speak to an actual human and the only way of dealing with issues is to post to their help forums and hope that someone who replies is actually someone in authority who can fix the situation. It took me over a month, during which I admittedly had to get pushy and cranky on their "help" forums, but that persistence paid off and the blog was finally restored.

I am now, though, very conflicted about its continuance, and about posting new content. I also have used this platform with the nature writing students, required dozens of them to have used it over the last several years. This was an awful experience, and I also am admittedly still irate (downgraded from enraged) about it. And I hate the idea of continuing with this platform after such an experience, either for myself or with my students. I decided that I wanted it restored for the sole intention of backing up all the content and exporting it all straight over to Wordpress, and then I would delete this one myself for good. I realize now that it will be many months before I have the time to do that, create an entirely new blog and essentially start over. I can't imagine that I won't want to post during that interim period, so I have now decided that I will just try to set aside my annoyance, post until then, and proceed with the I'm So Over Blogger Plan. 

So, know that this home here is simply for now. Because I have perfected the art of holding grudges. 

In the meantime, in local news, am very excited that the annual Radford Roosting Festival (the renamed  Vulture Festival) is upcoming and takes place during the Kindergartener's (the renamed Preschooler) birthday weekend festivities!

A Battle Over Wild Things

A few weeks ago, after our conversation, Next Door Neighbor B. took it upon herself to ask the landscapers to remove - physically and with the help of what I assume are noxious chemicals - the chocolate vine that climbed our trellis and balcony out back. I guess she got it into her head that all the snakes in the New River Valley were climbing it and using our porches as a vacation spot. Or something. I'll admit that it was a wee bit out of control, but it also produces the most delicious-smelling spring blooms I've ever known. And the fact that she did this without asking, informing, or notifying anyone, irks me. Greatly.

Hmm, guess which house is ours?

It turns out that snakes are not the only sign of nature that B. has issues with. She came over to speak with J. earlier, about "doing something" about our front yard, which, in her estimation, is far too wild. She kept repeating how it really has to be to be "cleaned up" right away, so that it looks "neat and tidy," and went so far as to claim that its current state violates the HOA rules. Landlord P. clearly disliked the orderly, condo-cookie-cutter lawn of this complex, clearly has a love of a diversity of plants and trees. And while I'll also admit that some of the trees, in particular, could use some trimming back, I find B's complaints equally irksome and quite puzzling. If not for this yard, we would not have the hummingbirds and house finches and cardinals, the squirrels and the new-resident chipmunk, the caterpillars and praying mantises, would not be able to eagerly await the blooming of another, mystery flower. Is there something inherent dangerous here, in this version of nature - besides the bees and wasps and annoying June bugs - that I'm missing? I'm having trouble understanding why instead we must accept one that is tamed and controlled and trimmed and sprayed, sometimes to death.

Our offensive yard, up close

While we are merely renters, this is one battle I will gladly fight.

Gratefully, Is What Is Best

We arrived home last night, just at dusk, tired, emotional, anxious after a journey that took hours longer than it should have - the usual snaking snarl of D.C. Beltway traffic - stopped at a light along Tyler Avenue, when J. noticed a firefly land on the windshield. We've been eagerly anticipating their seasonal arrival, impatiently, The Girls peering into each evening, hoping and waiting. And so far, we have been left still waiting. Like the hummingbirds, they have been much, much later than in previous years, so much so that I've gotten worried. Last night it was too late for Z & V, so I promised them we'd sit outside tonight. What I didn't tell them was that I looked, while bringing in carloads of stuff, stood outside the house peering into the evening. And I saw a single blink. I did some research today, which revealed that all 2000 species worldwide are declining; some biologists have even whispered the word: endangered.

For good measure, and because I know a kindergartener who will love it, I have signed us up to monitor fireflies in our neighborhood, with the Boston Museum of Science's annual Firefly Watch. Maybe the winter was not quite right and they really are just delayed this year. At least, I hope so. I cannot imagine a world, a childhood, without the magic of fireflies.

Deep, Strange-Scented Shade of the Great Dark

I was outside just now, giving the last of the breadloaf to the birds (oh, who do I kid? to the squirrels, really), when my next-door neighbor B. approached me to give me a most-serious warning: she'd seen "several" snakes in her yard and she wanted us to know to look out for them. Upon inquiry, I learned that they were native black rat snakes. The largest in Virginia, a bit imposing certainly, but still harmless. B. proceeded to tell me of how she kills them when she finds them.

I was reminded of a passage from Lisa Courturier's essay, "The Hopes of Snakes":

That the unease over the snake was disproportionate to the actual danger of the creature was not relevant. The concern seemed to be: Who does this snake think it is, venturing out of the trees to travel in the open grasses where stood people just now realizing the snake by their feet was not a child’s toy but an actual live serpent?...our awareness and direct experience of serpents is so limited that what we believe about them functions as a sort of anti-knowledge. In the absence of contact, the snake’s life forms in the human mind as a nightmare of slithering, of fangs, of constriction, of venom, of being swallowed slowly, and in full.

For B., for many people, clearly the very idea of a snake has become much more frightening than the snake itself. So much so that it becomes impossible to consider anything other than that idea, anything that might be closer to truth. Last fall, I opened the attached shed out back to discover a fairly large black rat snake coiled up inside. I guessed that it was seeking shelter from the torrential rains we'd had. I was startled to see it, surprised - especially considering the shed is off the second-floor balcony - but not scared really. And the next day when the rains had cleared, when I took Z. out to see it, it was gone. Last week, we found a tiny dead snake in the road and we all looked at it for a long time.

The snake in the road

The snake in the road, close-up

I explained to B. this morning that as long as I see them in places they're meant to be - our yards, for example, or even in the shed - I generally just leave them. She gave me a very puzzled look. I realize now on reflection that implicit in her warning was reproach: our yard is the only one in the complex without a small lawn, without grass, the only one that the weekly landscapers know to just leave alone. It is, to her and probably to all the other neighbors, disorderly, unkempt, untamed, with various tall plants and groundcovers and trees. B. claims that she has seen snakes climbing the unruly chocolate vine crawling up the trellis out back too (which would explain the snake in the shed).

Yes, ours is a too-wild place that invites wild snakes.

In Which Patience is Rewarded

Perhaps it is our higher elevation. Perhaps it is just that they were languidly enjoying the warmer climates and didn't want to leave. Perhaps the journey just took longer than usual. But although they were a full month behind others in the area, this afternoon I looked out at the feeder I've been diligently refilling in vain for weeks, and there they were: no fewer than three male ruby-throated hummingbirds. In Pittsburgh, when I would stand at the bus stop at the end of my block each April and see the giant magnolia tree finally in full-pink bloom, or finally see the mated pair of red-tails rebuilding the nest in the ancient oak along the parkway, I'd trust that winter was truly over.

Here my faith is placed in, to borrow a lovely phrase from a current student (thanks BG!), the "smallest of the tiny."