River Legacy Response

Nature Writing

A spider, its body glistening black and gold, eight legs arched and poised, waits patiently on its gossamer web. Sunlight pours through the silken strands, illuminating the morning dew, the remnant of the dawn. The web, with a diameter of approximately twelve to fourteen inches, stretches between two slender tree trunks, at least eighteen inches apart. Directly below it, somewhat to the right, a second spider web, slighter smaller, extends from the left tree trunk to a yet smaller tree. Below that one, another. Checkpoint Alpha, Checkpoint Bravo, Checkpoint Charlie: the spiders are Soviets just waiting to snag someone who longs for nothing more than freedom. A blue-shimmering horsefly, not able to pass through the checkpoints, is stopped by the arachnid sentry, bound, and hauled away, not sentenced to a gulag, but rather to death.

Elsewhere n the mid-morning air, orange butterflies flutter through the foliage, little girls in party dresses. Green dragonflies dart from a tree branch to a stem of grass in a straight line—no time to dilly-dally about like the butterflies. A friendly, brown moth rests on Rachel’s back, wanting to be petted. Cicadas are the invisible orchestra of the woods—their concert drowning out the din of the jetliner above. The bees are humming harmony in the background.

Vines with thorns drape from the tree while some with poison carpet the ground. Persistent mosquitoes hover around each of us until they discover the small patches of flesh not protected by bug repellent; then they feast. Snakes remain unseen, but still feared. The sun burns our exposed skin. The shade of the forest canopy is a welcome respite from the glaring sun. Wet faces, damp shirts, hot feet—nature scoffs at air-conditioning.

In the warm, wet hug of Mother Nature, we embrace each other as we do not in the sterile, air-conditioned building. Yet a nagging tug of sadness pulls at our inner core. Why? Nature pulls us to her our entire lives—she longs for us to come home to her. Just as a mother longs to see her child. Yet, we fear the return. Mother Nature forces us to see what is true: we are young, we grow old, we die. In dying, we return to nature, our dust mingling with hers.

And so modern society fights nature at every turn. Got bugs in the yard? Insecticide. Weeds? Herbicide. Freckles? Make-up. Wrinkles? Botox. Gray hair? Dye. Fat? Liposuction. Pests? Extermination. Heat? Air-conditioning. Boredom? X-box. Hunger? MacDonald’s. Thirst? Pepsi. Loneliness? Internet. AHAD? A pill. Depression? Another pill. Anxiety? Yet another pill.

Thus while spider weaving its web in the woods is beautiful to behold, a spider spinning the same in your living room is not. Nature may calm us from the frantic pace of our lives, yet few of us would choose to return to her full time. The eternal human paradox is wanting to be in nature, yet not become part of it. And so the melancholic longing with which nature draws us to her is as transitory as nature itself. As nature is constantly changing and adapting, so must we.