I confess to enjoying the world of nature where the mockingbirds laugh at us, confuse us with their sounds, and make us believe a robin’s chirping in the nest we carry on our heads to keep the rain from dampening our hair and the fleas from yanking at our good time. Nature laughs at us, frightens us, and soothes are jangled nerves from too much traffic and the static coming from the power lines.
Nowadays, I seek peace in the extraordinary, smiling when coming upon the clusters of wild flowers growing along the roadside, and the turkey buzzards sitting on the transformers creating an incongruity that goes unseen by your average passerby who feels no shame in replacing dirt roads with macadam, hardly noticing the animals have retreated and the trees weep tears into the rivers running to the ocean. Life becomes a sad state of affairs when you ponder man’s notion of progress has caused the diminishment of nature and our hearts to grow sad.
I glory in my own good time when I can glean the colors clinging to a spider web with the occupant hurrying to string numerous strands together, eventually calling it home with a built-in pantry. Nature can be a cruel thing when not dazzling us with beauty. The wind can lift the roofs off the houses and leave them standing naked with only the sky above, empty of birds, and covered by a shadow from a moonless night. There’s no getting comfortable. Just the leap of faith I take every day when slipping out of bed and relishing the unfolding of possibilities. I glance at my dog Mavis, the embodiment of nature, for inspiration from the beauty of knowing a dog rides the very waves of love that brighten all my days. Only fools suffer disappointments.