Smelly Ponderings

(OLD BLOG, FEEL FREE TO SKIP!) :)


My walk this week was one that I won't soon forget. The walk I go on is actually (GASP!) through the local Kennewatha park, which has some paths but actually has a lot of woods that are local enough to feel safe but secluded and large enough so that I think it counts as an authentic wilderness experience, or as close as I can get. I went on my walk and was still lacking in any real juice to start writing my blog. I decided that I would go towards the actual park and swing for a while to get my thoughts flowing. I slowed down and just sat on the swing taking in the sounds of nature around me, when a heard a rustling in the bushes nearby. Out walked a skunk, and my heart pretty much jumped into my throat. My first thought was of getting sprayed and how I would convince my roommate to let me back into the house to shower off the stench. My second thought was how I could possibly get out off the swing without scaring the skunk into spraying. The skunk walked out in front of me, and just stared at me, looking timid and uncertain. I don't know much about rabies, but I was pretty certain that at this skunk was a-ok, just uncertain. After a few moments, I started slowly swaying on the swing, thinking that if I was going to get sprayed maybe a little height on the swing would help the least amount of spray get on me. After a little while, I was just swinging normally, and the skunk was watching me with a bemused expression (if a skunk can look bemused), and then went on his way.

This whole situation really got me thinking about all the preconceived notions I have about nature in general. When I saw the skunk, I immediately assumed it would spray me, when I knew on some level even at the time that the skunk would only spray me if it felt threatened. Leopold said that he "once knew an educated lady… who told me that she had never heard or seen the geese that twice a year proclaim the revolving seasons to her well-insulated roof. Is education possibly a process of trading awareness of things of lesser worth? The goose who trades his is soon a pile of feathers". It stands to reason that the less time we spend in nature, the less comfortable we would be in it… But at what point do we actually toss everything we know to be true about nature out the window because of our discomfort being outside our homes? When nature becomes uncomfortable and alien to us, everything within it becomes strange and unpredictable in our minds. Maybe a few more walks into nature and I'll be confident enough to deal with nature the next time I encounter it.