Love In A Challenging Time

Honestly, it is hard to love the land right now. Usually I leave Texas in July. When I step out onto the back porch at night, it is still. It is hard to breathe. The slightest sound or movement makes a crunching sound, like nails on a chalkboard. The wildflowers have passed. The grasses have gone to seed. The world has become a shade of beige. The birds are quiet, and the cicadas have taken over. Their song is intense, rising, almost pounding, lacking any musical quality. I can’t leave. I am here because of the pandemic.

I realize I have been angry at the land because it feels like it is failing me. It isn’t offering the inspiration I seek. I have to look more closely than ever before. Sometimes I have to force myself to stay on the porch even for ten minutes. It is easier to turn away, to dream of next spring.

Tonight something shifted. I read that a storm is approaching the Texas Coast. The air feels less heavy. I step out and catch a glimpse of a rabbit’s white tail hopping along the far trail. Two deer and a fawn nibble on plants near the cactus patch. When other deer approach, they stomp their hooves and snort. I think I hear them chewing. I think about how challenging it must be for deer to find something tasty to eat right now. They wander through the yard like zombies.

Just beneath the porch, a juvenile green anole, the size of my pinky nail, curls into the groove of a sage leaf, its long tail running the length of the leaf’s vein. Maybe there was a drop of water nestled in the leaf, if the lizard was lucky.

As with any relationship, I am learning that sticking it out, even through the bad times, has its rewards. Celebrating the smallest things, even a slight change in humidity, feels like a giant step in the right direction.

Sometimes with loved ones, there are things that drive you crazy. They drive you crazy for months, even years. And then your loved one is gone, and you realize how much you are going to miss the things that drove you crazy. You miss those things because they were a part of who that person was, and you loved them anyway. Maybe that is the way it is with the land, too.

Nature Books:
H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
Nature often helps us to understand loss and to grieve. Helen Macdonald is a nature writer who will dazzle you with her stories. This book is about the death of her father, her harrowing story of adopting a hawk, and her "slow climb back into life after loss."