Plague Journal, Field Trip
Yesterday we took our two grand kids with us to Don Earley Park in West Chicago. The Geneva Road which we often travel passes by the Park. The small park is striking with a pond, walking path, a children’s playground with jungle gym, — something in between a forest preserve displaying nature’s serene beauty, and a manicured playground park.
The pond offering sight lines unimpeded by shoreline vegetation fascinated me. We 
walked around the pond several times during our visit. Two families of Canada geese with new born goslings were in plain view. I tried to imagine what it must be like for large birds like geese, adept to swim and feed for hours on ponds and waterways; powerful in flight, master of the sky migrating long distances; and then grazing to nourish themselves with the grass of lawns and golf courses. These birds are wonderful examples of how adaptive life can be.
It is rare to catch sight of turtles sunning themselves by the water’s edge. Turtles are shy creatures, taking to the water at glimpse of the slightest movement. With patience, after the passage of several minutes, you can catch sight of a tiny head with two eyes looking at you, slightly above the surface of the pond.
Our grandson is a “champion” bull frog hunter and catcher. He spied a number of bullfrogs at water’s edge during our walk around the lake. With a long slender Willow branch he was able to entice several of the amphibians to attempt a bite at the tip of the slender branch. I also learned that with proper technique sometimes it is possible to gently rub the back of a resting bullfrog. On our next visit to the park, perhaps I’ll learn the lesson of how this is done from our grandson.
Somehow a visit to such a pond comforts me. When I consider the eyes of all of the tiny creatures which are looking at me, eye to eye as it were, as I make my way around the pond, I feel that I am not alone, and have never been alone. Much of the living world seeks eye contact with us, perhaps a empathic “touch” of a sort…
Are we not all in this life together?
3 thoughts on “Plague Journal, Field Trip”
Thanks Jerry; A good read. I front a small pond and enjoy the life it supports. The pond has two geese families, with goslings that number four and five ( eggs surviving marauding coyotes ). Perhaps not seeing as much human activity as a public space, the pond’s turtles sun freely most all the time. There are heron and egrets as well and, watching them fish for tadpoles and after capture, beating them on the shore ( I guess to ensure they don’t grow up to be noisy frogs ) it is mesmerizing to watch the lump they make slowly, often 15/20 minutes, going down their new hosts’ throats. I believe one day I spotted a rare kingfisher in the trees by the pond. they fish from trees; not shore feeders.
Where there are ponds, there are great populations of dragonflies and, having once spent some time acquainting myself with First Nation cultures, if pressed to choose, I would have to say they are my ‘spirit guides’. I know they are often around when the blush of an existential thought passes my mind. And once, returning home after a day ride, on a sporting motorcycle with a ‘touch of blood in it’ ( T. E. Lawrence), shredding rear tire edges on Wisconsin ‘twisties’, I noticed something on the garage door that demanded attention before I opened it. Perusal revealed it to be two dragonflies’ mating – a most captivatingly beautiful sight ! And I will never hopefully forget the day that, after greeting one splendid representative of the species on a flower of a deck planter, he (of course) decided to come for a ride on the back of a hand while I slowly, with great intent, enjoyed a round of taiji.
Rejoice in life’s moments of serendipity !
Blessings
Al, what a great description of your relationship with the pond outside of your front door! We are embedded within Nature. Our activities can be understood as extensions of the pond, of the kingfisher, and the dragon fly. Have you considered revisiting H.D.Thoreau?
I should. Perhaps I am less the cynic I was when considering Walden’s Pond was only a short distance to town. I did understand and appreciate when he suggested that a prison was the only place in a regulated, controlled (forgot his verbiage – slave?) society where a free man can abide by his own thoughts. That sentiment has been echoed by other writers that have been added to my ‘things I’ve forgotten’ list.
I’ve enjoyed revisiting writers I read as a youth – contemporary writers being still fresh in my mind. Recently I’ve reread Dostoyevsky, Conrad (complete revision in my mind’s eye) and Tolstoy. I’ve always enjoyed the Russians; not everyone is going to pick up Sartre, Camus, Russel (or the Germans you’ve be fond of recently – or the Italians {except Boccaccio} – or Classical literature, and so-on) and enjoy the experience, but anyone may read the great Russian writers and if the blush of an existential thought never passes their minds, they have at the least enjoyed a good yarn.
Blessings