Saturday, April 5, 2014

They Looked Very Happy to Me 1995

The Alabama Hills—one of my all-time favorite playgrounds—have a singular desert-y charm with those Hollywood-movie-famous granite outcrops layered against stunning mountainous backdrops—a snow-capped, craggy Sierra to the west and, opposite them, the austere but even more precipitous Inyo mountains. After moving to the Owens Valley in 1983 I was actually living out on movie flat and, over the years, have camped for long periods at various favorite sites. I’ve certainly spent at least a year of my life climbing and exploring the intricate boulderfields and crags. It’s a place ideally suited for casual strolls and loaded with surprises once you start poking into the hidden corridors and following dry watercourses.
 I walk daily whenever camping out here; usually both morning and eve. In dry seasons, when all the crispy-grey shrubs and lesser plants look to be dead (or nearly so) there’s still rank beauty at every turn; an artist’s pallet of muted, earthy tones. At those times, my eyes are drawn to the middle and far distances, framing views of cracked and crumbling boulders below giant peaks. I stand and gaze, never tiring of familiar scenes.
But this spring I’m often down on my knees because the whole place has been transfigured by one of those monumental blooms that happen maybe four or five times in a century. Right now—oh my!—the sandy flats appear to have been painted in varied expanses of yellow and white, patches of purple; dotted by eye-catching reds here and there…all made of small flowers so profuse they’ve eclipsed their green parts. During my daily rambles I stop and gape, almost giddy, drinking in brilliant hues and savoring moist air. But it’s not those arresting colors so much as the sheer vegetative exuberance demonstrated by what I affectionately refer to as “my little green friends.”
 Openings between shrubs are alive with dainty, minute plants of many varieties. These so-called “ephemerals” burst forth by the millions in desert country after wetter  winters to flower, make seed, shrivel, and die within a month’s time. Individuals may be less than two inches tall and their threadlike stems may produce only a pair of leaves and a single flower. Others, not much taller, will put out flowers so long as their roots reach moisture. Their practically microscopic seeds sometimes wait years for just the right conditions and then GO FOR IT! en masse in a tremendous burst of dazzling vegetable vitality. They’re what’s painted the ground so lavishly hereabouts. And during these big blooms the perennial plants grow twice as tall and make three or four times as many blossoms (which are also larger than normal). Shrubs put on added foliage and their flowers, too, are much more numerous.
So this normally somewhat austere landscape—and especially because of our years-long drought—is bursting at its seams and I wake at dawn, full of anticipation, to the delicate songs of black-throated sparrows and rock wrens. This is what springtime always does to us—but I’ve seldom felt such an urgent need to use up every day, to see as much as I can and try to absorb impressions and details. These times don’t last; in my remaining days I might get to see a few more mega-blooms like this one…if I’m lucky.
 The great strident color-patches, the lushness, I can see and feel. On my knees, I focus on, identify, and reduce the wondrously improbable individual living entities to things I think I know. But can’t get far on these morning strolls before stopping yet again to try and grok what my eyes are seeing. For some reason, it won’t leave me alone—something’s tap-tap-tapping at my neocortex, trying to explain the mystery in simple terms—because it must be simple, because it just is—but I can never make out the message. It registers as something urgently demanding attention; something about what this phenomenon called Life actually is. It’s too close and too familiar, so we continually take it for granted.
           
Then, three days ago I saw this bit of visual poetry. More of the same….
            One of the showy, daisy-type flowers out here is “yellow tack-stem.” This seems an odd name until you look through a 15X hand lens (like I did) which reveals slender, green stems liberally dotted with little reddish hairs, each capped by a miniscule, round plate that look just like…tacks!…stuck into the stems. The flowers, somewhat over an inch wide, aren’t just yellow but a pale-ish, white-hot yellow like the sun and like the sun they seem to radiate their own light. Scores of narrow petals arising from the blossom’s very center are arrayed in concentric layers with the outermost (bottom) layer being longest. Each individual petal is tipped with several tiny teeth. The effect is that of a geometric star-burst pattern, a classic living mandala. And as a mandala this glowing flower draws one’s eye inexorably toward its center where it awakens both heart and mind with mental imagery hinting of infinity or wholeness or perfection (the way symbols can…and exactly what mandalas are specifically designed for). I’ve looked into the yellow tack-stem’s flower long and hard, many times.
            Though abundant elsewhere they’re not a common plant in the Alabama Hills. But on this walk I passed one and it caught my eye: in the very center of this flower was a tiny heart…a tiny heart made of moth.
And then I was on my knees again.
            The “heart” was two little fat-bodied moths, mating. Lovely creatures, less than half an inch long. I’d seen their kind before, fluttering around other daisy-like plants. One that I’d looked at through the hand lens several years ago, much enlarged and in great detail, faintly resembled a tiny man wearing a close-fitting Russian hat made of shaggy, grey wolf fur and a floor-length cape with broad wolf-fur muff about the collar. The gray cape was horizontally divided by narrow grey stripes separating three broad maroon bands and its bottom was fringed with iridescent maroon-colored feathers; scores of them, painstakingly attached. The medium grey and rich maroon were a fine chromatic pairing, well-suited for royalty. (Through my lens I could see the individual scales on its wings shining in the brilliant sunlight.) Silly, but at the time I thought this handsome moth looked like a tiny king wearing his imperial cloak and decidedly regal wolf-fur hat.
            These two, joined at the tips of grey, furry abdomens, were perfectly still in their coitus. Forming a very-much heart-shaped “V” in the center of the fiery flower and dusted with its golden pollen, the little king and his little queen were nestled in the sweetest nuptial bed imaginable; a radiant and fragrant starburst bed fit for royalty. It was a picture of blissful repose, two creatures lost in love, the finest hour of short lives.
I was there to witness this silent drama on a perfect spring day. For all three of us, is that moment, nothing else in the world mattered. Generally, I’m not inclined to blatantly anthropomorphize like this and not sure why I did in this case, charming as it was. The two moths certainly were not in love. But—I must say—they looked very happy to me.
                                                                                               



16 Apr 1995, 3 Apr 2014

                                                                                      ©2014 Tim Forsell

Piute Log....Otter Attack Sept. 1991

16 Sep (Mon)         Up at 5:15. Beautiful, clear sky fulla stars: Canis Major well-up over Hawksbeak [Peak]. Orion, the Hyades, Auriga—just brilliant; the winter constellations making early appearances. As I watched, Venus burst over the ridge, shockingly bright. ◦◦◦◦◦ Heading out today. After a huge, greasy breakfast, got cleaned up, swept, and gathered the three stooges. ◦◦◦◦◦ Pretty smooth trip out. Rode Pal. Valiente wheezed & groaned & dragged as per usual; Redtop I turned loose to follow. But then I caught Red and led him (he dragged also) and let Val follow on his own; that worked well and I didn’t have to listen to his complaining. ◦◦◦◦◦ Where the trail comes right down to Roosevelt [Lake] at the alder thicket I heard some splashing and strange, muffled sounds. Then I saw them: the otter family, just off the shore and on those half-submerged logs. I leapt off Pal and crept down to the bank. They saw me but, if anything, moved in closer. I was only twenty feet from seven river otters! The most I’ve seen before at one time was three and nowhere near so close. What a thing! Mostly, no more than five were visible at any one time. They were feeding & playing and when one would come up it’d shake its head sending off a spray of water and then clear its nose with a loud SNOOF! or two. They kept an eye on me but seemed little concerned by my presence, as if they were too engrossed in their work & play to be bothered by the likes of me. They have a faintly superior air about them as if well aware that they’re the happiest creatures on Earth. Lorenzo put it perfectly one time: he’d seen several playing by the shore near here as he rode by and, as he described it, they eyed him with that distinctly haughty look as if to say, “YOU…are a turkey. WE…are Otters!” ◦◦◦◦◦ They were in & out of the water, diving and gliding all around. One sat on the log—fur all slicked down and glistening—loudly munching on a crawdad. Another joined it with a 5” trout and devoured the thing with gusto. With their blunt heads, fat tails, and sinuous way of moving, they reminded me of big worms or short, plump snakes. I was actually quivering with delight and squatted there on the grassy bank surrounded by willows and happy creatures. I would’ve sat there watching as long as the family stayed but this excellent time was brought to an abrupt end. ◦◦◦◦◦ The horses were forty feet away, in plain sight. They’d been ground-tying [staying put, with lead-rope or reins just laying on the ground, rather than being tied firmly to something] just fine all day when I’d get off to collect trash. (Stood stock-still for ten minutes when I gathered up an old dump earlier….) But it seems that all the thrashing & splashing & weird sounds were too much for cowardly Pal. All was peaceful for those four or five sweet minutes, then another sort of thrashing & snorting, and I turned to see my three loose horses galloping in rank terror back up the trail. It was plain that they were mortally terrified, sprinting full speed back toward the cabin. I stood up (show over…) and mutely shouted Stop! Please stop! in my mind. ◦◦◦◦◦ They were already out of sight but I could visually follow their swift regress by way of a cloud of dust rising up into the trees over at Lane [Lake]. I Started running but soon stopped to ditch hat, FS shirt, chaps, and spurs. I might have to go all the way back to the cabin, I thought. Groan! But you have to put in the full effort right off if you want to catch runaways so ran as hard as I could, chasing that dust cloud. I dashed up the rocky hill past the far end of Lane and heard them ahead. Careened down through the mahogany [a rigid-stemmed, skin-tearing shrub] at full tilt and cut them off at the switchback. Much relief; I really did envision walking all the eight miles back to Piute. ◦◦◦◦◦ Red was in front with lead-rope dragging between his legs but I’m certain that it was solely Pal’s terror spreading through the ranks that caused the panic. And as I came up on them, coughing and wheezing, they all looked at me with that innocent gaze, like, “Oh, there’s that wispy-haired fella! Wonder where he went off to?” My lungs were fried—never run anymore; not like that, anyway—and I had a nasty, metallic taste in my mouth that I recalled from after track races when I was in high school. ◦◦◦◦◦ Got up on the palamino and headed back to retrieve my gear. Pal was all spooked and ready to dive off the trail should the giant worms reappear. ◦◦◦◦◦ The otters had left but I spied them all on the far side of the lake, working their way back toward the north end. I tied Pal and Red firmly to stout trees this time and waited for the wild ones. They came right by again, diving & bobbing & blowing & munching. Red and Pal were both straining at the ends of their ropes, eyes rolled back and nostrils flared. Monsters!! Arrrgh!! (Val stood there completely unfazed.) The otters were merely curious and I witnessed one of my finest wildlife spectacles ever: each in turn, they crawled up onto the end of one of those half-submerged logs where it rose out of the lake. And there were seven otters on that log, black eyes sparkling and heads bobbing up and down, watching those silly horses and me with manifest curiosity. Seven otters—splendid animals—shoulder to shoulder. I tried to get closer but, one at a time, they slid soundlessly back into the water and didn’t resurface ‘til they were well out in the lake. Whew! Wow! Show’s over for real this time.……
31 March 2014



©2014 Tim Forsell