nature walk

[jfb]

Last night before sleep I read "A Billion Conscious Acts," a six-page story by the comics artist Paul Chadwick. In it, his strange, lonely hero Concrete "walks across a grassy area," and then Chadwick examines the space of a single footprint: an acorn cracked open (dropped there by a mouse when an owl attacked), exposing weevil larvae, and so on and on. Cycle of life stuff you've heard before, but what's spellbinding is the meticulous way Chadwick describes and draws all of this activity in a square foot of grassy space.

Today, not really thinking about this, I decided to go for a walk down the Stevens Creek Trail.

The trail passes about two blocks from my apartment. Where I pick it up, it's a paved trail along a paved creek--there's a straight cement slope down to the water, if there is any, on both sides. On the other side of the trail is a steep slope up to a freeway, CA-85. When the trail runs under US 101, the freeway falls away, and the flat cement is replaced by earlier artifices--stones placed in the bank to shore it up.

Other things the Stevens Creek Trail passes:

• Microsoft
  
• electrical towers
  
• a father-son game of catch in the apartment complex across the creek
  
• NASA Ames Research Center
  
• a trailer park and its community garden
  
• A to Z Tree Nursery, "Specialists in Container Grown Trees and Shrubs", with a row of palm trees planted in little boxes

As you proceed, the man-made stuff thins out and the landscape opens up into a gorgeous view of the hills across the bay. It's not exactly wilderness, though--there are still scattered office buildings on the left, and on the right there was a strange structure with a small airplane suspended in air between two towers, nose tipped down, as if it had been about to make an unpleasant landing just before time stopped.

And, of course, there are plants and birds and rocks and things; there are bugs and lizards and small furry animals. But I have neither the scientific nor the visual vocabulary to share any of them with you.

I was watching, though. I was noting the variety of wildlife even in a cement creek in the suburbs. But of course even on my nature walk I couldn't give nature my full attention--I brought my iPod and I was listening to songs like Thomas Dolby's "Airwaves", one of a crop of early-80s songs that have always struck me as an attempt to refit the romantic view of people in nature to an artificial, technological environment.

The most direct experience of nature I can still remember was in Florida a few years ago. With a couple of hours to kill before my flight home, I drove to Osceola National Forest, parked the car at an empty picnic area, walked a little ways into the woods, and stopped...

... and spent a few minutes looking for every insect, lizard, bird I could find, listening for activity in the branches above and fallen leaves below, for every looping bird call...
... and took one more step...

... and looked and listened again, seeing how different my surroundings were just two feet away, different dramas going on in the underbrush, different sounds emphasized by proximity...
... and took another step...

... and after about half an hour of this, made the 90-second walk back to my car and took in the view of the correctional facility across the highway.

On my walk home tonight I stopped at a multiplex and bought a ticket to whatever was screening next: as it turns out, Finding Nemo.

Comments

[xythian.livejournal.com]

I loved that steven's creek trail walk with the airplane suspended, occasionally you could see exotic or at least unusual vehicles by looking into ames/moffet from the trail. I was less thrilled with the ominous thrum of the overhead high tension wires. I miss it. I've found some nice walks to go on, but no good skating.

[jfb.livejournal.com]

I guess one advantage of having an iPod along is, no ominous thrum.

[jfb.livejournal.com]

I was wondering if the airplane had been there a long time. Do you have any idea what the deal is with that?

[tuliphead.livejournal.com]

i've seen that train a lot, but never walked it. how far did you walk today? if/when i move back down i'll have to make time to check it out.

re Thomas Dolby: one of the first times i ever came to visit SF was about 10 years ago, to visit someone. i found an ad on a billboard at my school for someone looking for a passenger to share gas prices. i went with him, and the 10-hour ride there, and the whole 10-hour ride home, the only tapes he had to listen to were The B52's "Cosmic Thing" and Thomas Dolby's "The Golden Age of Wireless". those albums may be ruined for me forever.

also re Dolby: i saw him live in 2000 playing with the Soft Boys; their bassist, Matthew Seligman, has done a great deal of studio work with Dolby (and many notable others) and got him to come hang out with the band for their SF show. he didn't do much other than play keyboards on a song or two, but it was neat. he was friendly afterwards, and Seligman is also a really really nice guy.

:)

nature walk comics

[bushmiller.livejournal.com]

I love comics about nature walks. I haven't read Chadwick's, but, as I recently said on my blog, Concrete was hugely influential to me as an example of good, thoughtful non-superheroic comics work.

Here's one of my favorite comics ever about a nature walk, done by one of my favorite comic artists ever.

--sean

Re: nature walk comics

[jfb.livejournal.com]

I think you showed this to me once before but I didn't get it somehow. I got it this time. Thanks.

Re: nature walk comics

[greyaenigma.livejournal.com]

I meant to comment about Concrete when I first read it, but I couldn't remember precisely which story that was. So now I'll dig that up too. Maybe I can check out a fen while I'm at it.