E: Nature

Chapter/Adult: Nature

What mystery do they see in these fallen twigs, the muddy leaves, the
gently sloping - because, yes, that's what it would be called - the
gently sloping bank? Is it the knowledge that they are the first to
gaze upon that piece of bark making its way into the current, a tiny
raft with no passengers and no destination but some other lagoon carved
out by the water, water that is either too cold, too rough, too clear?
How can they risk their new jackets and boots and day-glo backpacks
while laying just over the sludge, the only barrier between them and
maddening dampness a bed of leaves that looks dry but is all too ready
to be pulled back, revealing a crazy world of worms and snails and
wetness. What do they see in the greens, browns, yellows? Do they hear
something calling to them as the wind whistles through the trees, their
thin jackets, their legs as they balance tripod-like to do the only
thing they know how to do naturally?

This place, right here: It's Walden Pond, Loch Ness, an iceless Lake
Geneva, the drainage ditch behind some country boy's un-conditioned,
clapboard house. It's a place for tough, shoe-less feet, or the feet in
boots, sneakers, and thin rubber sandals, feet which fear the errant
branch, poised like its tiger pit, jungle cousins to strike, impale,
make a bloody mess of the clean campsite paper towels and cast-off
t-shirts lying beside the tent. It's what Atlas shrugged off, to be rid
of the consistency, the sameness, the non-human disorderliness of it
all.

And will they admit, finally, as they drive away - reaching to scratch
the red bumps on one ankle, or running a dirty finger over their teeth,
or wondering how long until the first rest stop, that one with
bathrooms and a gleaming water fountain between the men's and women's
doors - will they admit, finally, that the real mystery was how anyone
managed it at all? That there is, in fact, no mystery as to why the
very same creeping, crawling, sticky murkiness they have spent the past
few days wallowing in has been pushed back, back behind the concrete
road, the teepee-like snow fence, the eighty-foot dam with the
beautifully smooth walls? That their new boots and jackets will look
good enough in the teeming malls of their lives to forgive the expense
of the tents and sleeping bags which even now - poorly folded, damp,
and sandy - sit pressed into the cramped corners of their cars? They
smile at one another - I know they do - and think of tiled floors and
hot, hot water.