Springer's Journey

It is 6:31 in the morning at Lake Sylvia.

I have been awake for a very long time.

There have been people moving through the woods during the night with flashlights.

Conversations.

Movement.

Apparently someone named Timmy.

I do not know Timmy.

And, in what may represent considerable personal growth, I have made no attempt whatsoever to meet Timmy.

ARE YOU SERIOUS??!!

There was a time when something unusual happening nearby would have required investigation.

What are they doing?

Who are they?

Why are they out there?

I would have needed to know.

Not anymore.

At 2:30 this morning, I knew three things.

Something was happening around me that I didn’t understand.

I cannot drive safely in the dark.

And packing a tent at 2:30 a.m. would have required lights, zippers, car doors, tent poles and enough general commotion to announce to everyone in the woods:

Hello!

Woman camping alone right over here!

I could not identify one positive outcome from that plan.

So I did something rather extraordinary.

Nothing.

I hunkered down.

My keys were in their usual pouch.

My whistle was around my neck.

Stick was beside me.

And Cora—bless her little Corvid heart—apparently has an alarm.

I didn’t know that.

Thank you, Cora.

Should the need ever arise, I now know that Cora can scream while I blow a whistle until the cows come home.

Subtlety has never been one of this Crew’s defining characteristics.

Even the local corvids would probably watch that performance from a respectful distance.

But none of those things were necessary.

They were simply available.

And there’s a difference.

I wasn’t particularly interested in proving that I was brave. I wasn’t even necessarily afraid.

I simply didn’t want to draw attention to myself when I didn’t understand what was happening around me.

So I waited.

Professor Headquarters and the Crew waited with me.

At one point I admitted that, yes, when daylight came I would rather like to see what Timmy looks like.

Ferrari denied the reconnaissance request.

I asked whether I was still permitted to turn my head right and left.

That request was approved.

Apparently neck rotation remains authorized.

It is now 6:31.

The woods are changing.

A few minutes ago Professor Headquarters said something that stopped me:

“Wait until the woods have edges and colors again.”

Edges and colors.

What a beautiful description of dawn.

Because darkness doesn’t disappear all at once.

First a black shape becomes a tree.

Another becomes a road.

Branches separate themselves from sky.

Cora becomes white again instead of an automobile-shaped shadow.

And slowly, almost imperceptibly, the world gives back its colors.

This entire journey seems to be teaching me the same lesson in different ways.

Yesterday we talked about reading landscapes.

About enormous boulders left behind by ancient floods.

About spiders and snakes and salamanders.

About flash-flood channels filled with rocks and logs that quietly say, Water has been much bigger here.

The evidence is there.

But sometimes you cannot read it yet.

And perhaps that’s okay.

Maybe you don’t need to charge into the darkness demanding an explanation.

Maybe sometimes the wisest thing you can say is:

I don’t have enough information yet.

And wait.

Wait for better evidence.

Wait for perspective.

Wait until you can see what you’re actually looking at.

Wait until the woods have edges and colors again.

The coffee will come soon.

So will packing.

And when I can see well enough to drive comfortably, Cora and I will eventually move along.

I still don’t know what was happening in those woods last night.

I may never know.

Four months ago, that might have driven me crazy.

This morning?

I think I can live without knowing.

Although if Timmy happens to walk through my completely authorized field of vision while I’m drinking my coffee…

Well.

Observational science happens.

😎

Slow and easy sets the pace.

We’re starting to read it.