Within us, without us

Kind of embarrassing. In my last post I mentioned the young rabbit who had the white blaze on his forehead, which I presumed made him unique. Turns out that Eastern Cottontails all have that when they are young, then it fades away like the white spots on a fawn. I've been around Eastern Cottontails my entire life, but I never noticed the blaze until this year. Because this year I had and took the time to look. Then my mind jumped to a false conclusion.

Both seem to be lifelong patterns.

Not really lifelong, I guess. More like long-term adult patterns. Because we get so busy. When I was a kid I remember watching the clouds turn from white to gray to black in an approaching Nebraska thunderstorm. One time I sat at the base of Chimney Rock (a Nebraska and Oregon Trail landmark, look it up). It's essentially a sandstone tower that beckoned the westward wagon trains, telling them they were about to begin the arduous mountain work. On this warm and sunny autumn day I watched the wild prairie flowers dancing in the constant breeze, and listened to the birds. I heard the faintest of other noises, and a tiny piece of sandstone rolled down and past me. Just the wind doing its bit as part of nature's relentless changes, just the same eroding forces that created Chimney (and Courthouse and Dome, and Scotts Bluff among others) working to level their work, like a child playing in a sandbox. And I happened to witness one tiny moment of that creation and destruction, which long preceded my existence and will long outlast me.

Another time, as a young adult, I was sitting beside a small stream in a local forest reserve, watching nothing in particular. Suddenly the water seemed to boil, and a large dark object rose up like a surfacing submarine in an old war movie. Turned out to be a huge old snapping turtle, no doubt his usual routine, working his way upstream from the river, foraging for lunch.

Routine to him, but new to me, one of countless creatures and occurrences that pass by unnoticed by most of us most of the time. I'd venture to say it's human nature to presume that because we have a general understanding of the world we notice, that we have a real understanding.

But we don't. To paraphrase George Harrison wrote, "Life goes on within us and without us."