Beauty

My sister made an interesting comment this week concerning Caledon and how beautiful it must be. Really, it is fairly nondescript. Except for one narrow area, it is flat, there is some diversity in ground cover from trees to wetlands, but there are no major streams in the eagle habitat. The Potomac isn't particularly majestic or beautiful either. If it weren't for the eagles and the fact that I needed a relatively flat easy walk for Guy, I wouldn't have been there.

So beauty is really in the eyes of the beholder, or reader. I think of Friday, when it got so warm and we were in Prince William Forest. I brought Guy to a flat area next to a stream for him to have a drink. On the sand was a baby snake. I think it was a rattler, but it was too immature to tell from the markings. It had the fangs and triangular head of a venomous snake and there aren't that many poisonous species in this area so, by default, there aren't too many choices. I let it attack my walking stick to observe it. I wasn't worried because there was no way that its fangs could penetrate my boots. But I did keep Guy away from it to be careful.

Why do I write that? Because to me, being so close to the snake in its natural habitat, like the eagles, is beautiful. As we walked yesterday, late in the afternoon, we passed a wetlands and the music of the frogs' chirping was beautiful. To me it is a shame that what I am experiencing is the exception, not the rule. I guess we have to find places to put several billion people and finally, we are giving some attention to the ecosystem that sustains us. But when we look at it only in that way, a necessity to maintain life as we know it, and forget its beauty, we are losing out. As Dolores said, as bad as my situation is, at least I am getting to "enjoy" things I couldn't enjoy if I were working. I told her she was wrong, because I was concentrating on my problems and how much this situation sucks. But the more I think about it she is right. I really need to enjoy what I can and consider myself lucky for the opportunity.