NATURE BEING NATURE

Whitetail deer, glad to find the snow cover gone,

graze in a field up the road last Saturday.

The snow has melted and the last formations of ice in the riffle have vanished. All that's left of winter's first hurrah is the border of shelf ice along the river's edge—and that is shrinking daily; if it weren't for night temperatures below freezing, it would have disappeared already.


In less than a week we've gone from wonderland white back to basic brown, a visual reminder that winter doesn't always look like its storybook persona. But then, does any season really? All of spring is not spangled with wildflowers. Summer can be cool or rainy. Autumn runs the gamut from sunburn to frostbite, and those dazzling leaves aren't colored up the entire period—in fact, the last weeks of the season there usually aren't any leaves at all on the trees. Why should winter be expected to present any less variety?

It doesn't help that the sun has hidden itself behind a thick veil of clouds for the past few days. Without that bright illumination, the light is flat and dim, making the world in brown attire seem dull—at least to those who prefer their days sparkling. But again, this is simply another of those winter characteristics we conveniently forget.

Too often we idealize nature. We fixate on one aspect and disregard the rest. Seasons, however, aren't stage managed by Walt Disney, the Nature Channel, or those art directors who selected the snazzy photos for that fancy calendar now hanging on your kitchen wall. Seasons are too broad to be dictated except in the most general terms. One winter can be mild, the next harsh. We can't even predict months. You can have a snowy December, sunny January, and a February wet with rain. The next time around might be just the reverse. So we "average" things out…except that no month is ever average; they're all individuals, all typical only of themselves.

Such contrariness on the part of nature wreaks havoc on the sensibilities of those who like things orderly. They would have years and seasons and months on as strict a timetable as a railroad—all laid out and meticulously planned. Why, you'd be able to set the date for a picnic in May and never consider the possibility of rain. Or book that ski trip to Aspen and know you'd be boot-deep in fresh powder every day!

Wouldn't the world be wonderful? Well…no. Not so far as I'm concerned. When the round of the year ceases to be a daily adventure—a voyage of discovery with a surprise around every corner—then I'm ready to get off the bus. The joy of life is in the living, the capacity to learn and grow and encounter unexpected wonder. I don't want my days all mapped out and outlined like the plot in some trashy formula novel.

Nature is messy, cluttered…and sometimes, disturbing. I've not mentioned this before, but a day or so after Christmas, as the high water we'd had over the holiday subsided, a dead deer was revealed on the bank just across the channel from the cottage. How it ended up there is anyone's guess. Did it run across the island, plunge off the bank and into the water and break its neck? Or simply drown while attempting to swim the swollen river? Might it have been hit by a car somewhere, made it to the water where it succumbed, and washed downstream to become lodged in the bankside debris? It is a story forever unanswered.

I was going to write a piece earlier and post a photo. This notion of the photo appalled Myladylove as being too insensitive to those who might not wish to see a picture of a dead deer. She was right. Nature in the raw is sometimes too raw, too disturbing. And yet, it is a part of nature, part of the natural world and the natural cycle, whether we like it or not. There's blood and gore aplenty in nature; even a robin is a fearsome beast if you're an earthworm. If my beloved turkey vultures who roost nightly in the island's big sycamores hadn't temporarily gone south, they'd have a buzzard's equivalent of breakfast in bed. I would post those photographs!

To all things there is a season.

Day and night, winter and spring, life and death. One velvety-green morning in April I'll look across the channel to the island and see a doe standing, nuzzling her newborn spotted fawn. The fabric of our days is woven from many threads. The world keeps on turning.…