Dispatch from a Distance -- Turning Toward the Sun [by Cara Benson]

It comes again. Every year. Every year I wonder, how does it happen, this miracle of growth, of green of flower of budding breeding migrating and the prolific swelling smells of earth coming alive into growing season. It’s iconic, awe at the miracle of cyclical rebirth. Ancient, even. Persephone, after all, had her own cult. I’ll admit that I’m not opposed to fancying myself a goddess traipsing through fields of hayseed ferns and the start of what will bloom into goldenrod in a few months. (Or to having a cult following, if I’m honest.) But the goddess of spring in long ago Greece was also the goddess of the underworld, that dark place humans have mythologized for millennia, and I do not think this is by coincidence.

TS Eliot famously said that April is the cruelest month. And then there’s the violent response to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, itself a symbolic disruption of tradition. Breeding season is a surprisingly dangerous time. Tender new shoots get trampled. Birds fail to fledge and get eaten. Only thirty percent of young songbirds survive. I saw a fawn, just born!, not a foot and a half high on bowed and shaky legs, wobbling its way behind the mother as she leapt out of sight into the woods. The babe not so much leapt, but bobbled. How easily this little one could get snatched. There are bear in these woods, and they wake up hungry. Other predators, too, including the most impactful of the lot – humans. Not just as hunters or destroyers of habitat, but also as drivers of two ton vehicles that smash, squash, and ravage flesh with barely a bump registering under the tires in some cases.

photo of yours truly by tc tolbert

Are you ready to riot yet? I am. And I am that trampler, that driver. As aware and watchful as I am, I’ve hit and killed probably more creatures than I know. Only yesterday a woodchuck ran out so close to my car there was no option for me to avoid it (though I’ve been accused of going up on two wheels to screech around a frog or chipmunk). There was a commotion under the car but in the rear view he/she kept on across the road behind me. Was it merely a matter of him getting banged up a bit? Did he make to the other side to die? Notions of locating and waiting for wildlife rehabilitators occurred to me, then I let this one go and drove on, crying. I think he made it. I do. Through the tears that I kept wiping so I wouldn’t create another potential casualty, I couldn’t help but notice the profusion of wild phlox and rhododendron along the road, both brightly hued flowers known for attracting hummingbirds and other pollinators. It didn’t seem enough, the magenta. But I continued on. What other option is there?

There is another choice, isn’t there, and that is to turn away. To avoid the rear view mirror. To remain in denial that everything that is born ends. What’s more, that at times I will be the one behind the wheel. And while I have intimate experience with the desire to stay shielded from at best unpleasantness, at worst tragedy, the fact remains: no one gets out of here unscathed. (I know we know this, and it bears repeating, and repeating, and...)

Everything changes – that’s the ultimate lesson of seasons, I suppose. And now even the seasons themselves are changing from what they’ve been for millennia, which is altering everything else on the planet. Life as we know it exists within such a razor thin margin in atmospheric conditions. The slightest of shifts could sooner than later take us out of the grift. Rendering earth unlivable is assuredly a primary rejection, perhaps the Freudian death drive in action en masse. (For the record, the ones cashing in on this are the über-drivers here, dragging the rest of us along in their quest for domination; but that ‘rest of us’ is varied, with varying degrees of individual and collective responsibility.)

What does it look like to face this? To, as Terry Tempest Williams writes, “find the strength to not look away from all that is breaking our hearts”? For me this means learning how to embrace my love for the world even as it’s under threat. One way I do this by paying attention on my walks. This might not sound like it requires the strength of which Williams writes, but I assure you this can be quite tricky ground. I’m quick to ascribe what might be merely a seasonal variation to a sign of a changing climate and suddenly my cavorting is shot through with worry. (My mental and emotional states can be as vulnerable as a baby bird some days.)

What is a normal seasonal fluctuation? Keen observation over time, the kind that puts a feeling for the rhythms of one’s surroundings into one’s bones, seems key to knowing what's typical. While this is only my second year on the hill, I did remember from last season a particular pool of water in a mud rut that became the site of blobs of gelatinous amphibian eggs. This year, the rain early on was such that there was no continuous water to provide a breeding ground. Some of this is to be expected, I told myself. But then the more reliable vernal pools that had exploded into a croaking frenzy in an early warm spell this season were not as flush with eggs as I thought they should be.

Reader, I despaired. The pond had been positively jumping with life during breeding, so much so that I could hear the orgy well before I came in view of the water. Had a subsequent cold snap killed off this season’s generation? And if so, is that part of the usual brutish and short ways of the wild or something less, eh, natural?

I was relieved to find later that the eggs must have been submerged in ways I didn’t detect because there they were, those squirmy tadpoles, propelling in multiple directions just under the surface, after all. The hatching had happened! That said, I’m not convinced that there were enough tadpoles for this generation of wood frogs to be on track, but then I am not systematically nor objectively observing in the field here. There are too many variables in my incipient data collection (geared toward anecdote) that I have no idea how to control for. More importantly, it’s only been two trips around the sun I've been observing. Is this a normal amount of offspring survival? Did I miss other batches of tadpoles and the numbers are where they need to be? Am I predisposed to panic, even if that could be considered an appropriate if not necessarily helpful response? (That’d be a yes for sure on that last one.)

I did turn to the internet for a deeper dive on seasonal cycles, a warming planet, and the mating habits of my newfound beloveds, Rana sylvatica. There’s much more to say about how climate variability impacts species survival as various triggers in response to the environment for where and when to breed are finely calibrated to avoid predation, to ensure sufficient food sources, and to react to other elements that support a healthy population, but I’d like to get up above tree line for another view on facing our changing biosphere.

I live about a two hour drive from the Adirondacks, a 10 million year old mountain range in northern NY State. There are 21 summits in the Daks that poke through the clouds into what is known as the Alpine Zone. Life is rare, fragile, and endangered above 4000’. Trampling here is a travesty. Many of the High Peaks summits have been perilously roughed up over the decades of hikers putting boots to ground in their quest for bagging the highest points in the range. For the record, I love summitting mountains. I also love the mountains themselves. These feelings and activities can absolutely co-exist. During the 1970s and 1980s, however, adventure pursuits overtook the peaks and acres of the most rare of ecosystems in the State were getting worn away in front of the eyes of those who were paying attention.

What to do? The answer they chose was to double down on observation. Various organizations working in tandem launched long-term monitoring programs. While most of these species are 10,000 years in the making, the data collectors have been able to determine quite a bit of useful information on the health of and the challenges to these plants over the past fifteen years. This information fueled an education outreach program, and now ADK Summit Stewards await eager hikers on top of the popular peaks during the busy months (which have become increasingly busier). They teach people to do the rock hop, to notice particulars in the awe-inspiring terrain, and to develop an appreciation for the rarity of the environment they’re standing in. The result, so far, has been an undeniable success. By all accounts the summits are rebounding in response to the greater awareness engendered by this effort. 

Diapensia blooming

On a recent hike I took up Haystack, the third highest peak in the range at 4960’, the weather turned as it does in the mountains and shifted from the predicted mostly cloudy to full on rain for the remaining hours of the trip. The trails to Haystack are rocky, choppy, and then fully exposed and scoured by wind and elements. It was tough going. My gear is well used, so it wasn’t long before I “wetted out” (got soaked to the bone). Breaking tree line was dramatic and felt quite desolate. Gray rock. Gray sky. Soggy soul.

The incline is such in spots that scrambling is required, fingers needing to find cracks in the rock to support the climb. As a result, I was closer to the mountain, literally, and focused intently on its surfaces. Pulling up above one particular ledge, I poked my head out over the ridge and saw the tiniest spots of bright white in the crevices and folds in the slope. As I got closer I was amazed to discover Diapensia in bloom. I might sound like a nerd, but this is a plant that grows at the rate of around 1/2 inch every 50 years and flowers for only a week. I wasn’t even aware of this "pincushion plant" until a summit steward on a previous hike taught me what it was. And then to come upon it unexpectedly in bloom? And so profusely, it turned out, up the sides of the hill? This did my heart a world of good. And oh how I needed it. These moments keep me in the game.

***

Cara Benson's writing has been published in The New York Times, Boston Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Hobart, Fence, and elsewhere. Kevin Young chose her poem "Banking" for the Best American Poetry 2011. A recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, she lives in ancestral Mohican territory in upstate New York. www.carabensonwriter.com

Read previous posts in this series: Hello from a Distance, Enter Geese; Whose Woods; Roads and Seeds, A Trace; Hunting Season; and Animal Tracking. 

Comments

[Judy Staber]

Thanks for this Cara. I too wander the woods and marvel at this wonderfulpart of our world.
Your essay gave me a welcome break from putting my book together -- permissions, photos, etc etc,
By the way the title you and I came up with is now THE title: Rise Above It, Darling.

[Julie Owsik Ackerman]

This post did my heart a world of good.

[Cecele Kraus]

Thank you, Cara. Your piece helped me understand my range of feelings as the seasons change.

[Stacey]

This is a lovely essay. Such fine observation. I'd love to join you on a hike in the Daks some day. I used to be a regular, but that was decades ago. You make me want to return. Stacey

[LisaMary]

Love your work!!

[Chris Colarusso]

Thank you, Cara. Your writing is lyrical and lovely. Just what I needed today, and will think about when I am in the Adirondacks for two weeks this Fall.

[Jeffrey Cyphers Wright]

And now, winter's here--the other side of the coin. Congrats on your essay!