"Being there" in October

One of my favorite "outdoor writers," Gene Hill, once recorded several of his stories under the title of "Being there." I have the 8-track cassette version on a shelf in my library. I'm reminded of that by views of basically empty skies the past few days, accompanied by the sight of duck boats and camo'ed canoes trailered behind or in the beds of pickup trucks. I've spent many happy but frustrating hours of my life sitting in a duck boat staring at empty skies. Hill captures some of the reasons with the following

But the truth, to my way of seeing it, is that those who love the bits and pieces of being there—the sweetness of a singing lark, the way one whitetail can suddenly fill up a clearing, the fearsomeness of a sudden storm, and the almost unbelievable sense of relief when we’ve gotten out of a very sticky situation—have to have a sense of the magic of it all, a belief in the intangible and unknown, and no small degree of unquestionable wonder.

Yesterday evening a whitetail stepped out of the woods and walked toward the pear tree at about 6:45 pm. She filled the field between the wood's edge and the pear tree while she was there. That kind of vision is a large part of the magic of living in the country. It offsets by a lot the irritation of yards tunneled and mounded by moles and pocket gophers, while mice make homes in the tractor wiring. It helps me realize the that a number of chores, when viewed properly, become a pleasant way to spend time outdoors, not just something I "gotta' do."

October whitetail on a country road

Photo by J. Harrington

While headed into town this morning I slowed the Jeep for a whitetail yearling that stood watching my approach in the travel lane we both occupied. That deer finally skipped across the road as I noticed it's companion standing on the far side of the road ditch waiting for me to travel on. I've never been much of a deer hunter--too restless to sit still long enough, but ducks and grouse have enticed me into marshes and thickets in pursuit of magic. Hill also captures the inevitable, if we're lucky, time when we become more an observer than a participant:

Remember when time was cheap? The songs we sang about it told us that we had time on our hands, that time stood still, that tomorrow would be time enough. And now we find it was not. Suddenly times to come have become times past, and we must hoard it and spend it cautiously as the tag ends of a small inheritance . . . which is what it really was all along—except no one told us.

May your autumn be full of magic and the making of memories. 

Fall Song

by Mary Oliver

Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries - roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay - how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.

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