Uprooted

August spirals into summer’s end and the beginning of Fall. The acorns from the Burr Oak , half eaten by busy squirrels are kerplunking like the slow rain, onto the deck again. What must it be like; abundance and the feasting of harvest carried with a muted signal of too little on the slowly drying, green horizon.  

I walked the dog down the marsh path today. Huge leaves of wild rhubarb, pockmarked with insect holes, line the path. Thistles weeds with their pink blooms are intermarried among them. Milkweed, a steady influence persists nearby. And what I call the fairy webs of spiders are sprinkled in the wet, cool grass. The wooden bridge across the marsh is a long green tunnel. I stood on the railing for the calming view of a sea of swaying cattails leading to a horizon of dark smudged trees. 

The almost weekly storms have left a large number of sticks everywhere. The dog just steps over them now. He’s become a connoisseur of sticks. It's harder to step past are the wind snapped branches like the inner white arm of a tree limb with a jagged edge ripped from nearby tree dangling into the path. 

There are four large trees, at least 100 years old, with their huge trunks toppled sideways, roots half exposed who fell into the arms of their fellow trees. Now, they bear them like burdens. Living at the edge of a forest has taught me Nature, harsh, beautiful, and responsive is about the big picture. Life goes on as it can. 

My own losses should have taught me the impossibility of bargaining with fate. Some changes do just happen. The neighbors house caught fire in a lightning strike a few weeks ago. The front door and her beautiful garden are intact but the top is open to the sky. Since then, I’ve been considering the comfort of magical thinking. Our house seems so sturdy. It’s been here for a long time. We have survived lots of storms. Those facts don’t prevent a lightning strike. 

The deer, foxes and other forest animals are working harder to survive in this summers’ conditions. So much to eat but so much rain, storms, so many bugs, mud, smoke from forest fires to navigate to get food. They persist because they have to which means they want to..survive.   

Today, as I write this, our street has been converted to dirt. The sewer pipe replacement project has reached our front door. The pounding and dredging of large equipment, the immense concrete pipes are laying on our lawns. I’ve moved cars, circled the street to avoid the holes and shrug my shoulders about the dirt and the noise. This is, eventually, about a good change. It’s temporarily uncomfortable.

Our Hosta salad garden for the deer, is growing again. The deer, probably frightened by the noise and heavy equipment moving ever closer, are not venturing into our backyard.

     We tried everything to get the deer to stop eating the Hostas. I have accepted the some Hostas will be eaten. Also I love seeing the deer up close. The sight of them releases beauty into my heart. Do I think they could live without my Hostas? Have I eaten deer? Yes to both questions. Change is, I guess, not pure but messy and ongoing. 

This summer with the changed forest, the changed streets, the changed neighbors house; I see change every time I look outside. It isn’t my choice. It is my view of the world.  How much change happens to us all every day? How much do we acknowledge, how much do we ignore, avoid every day? I too, persist because I have to. It’s fate again; not a bargain but what I can do as me. It seems a poor answer. Doing nothing seems a worse one. 

Doing nothing is sometimes a form of giving up. For me, failure leaves as much pain as giving up. I’d rather act. Honestly, I’m enjoying driving my car on the bumpy dirt streets. I love seeing the deer. I’ll keep praying and showing up for my neighbors. And in this season of storms, of change, I am accepting global warming is here.  Nature and I may be able to persist. The question is how much will I have to accept and how much will I refuse to accept. All of which means I’ll have to change.