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Sunday, January 9, 2005 |
 When outdoors with a dog, anybody can observe the gulping relish with which it quaffs evocative smells, then punctiliously may leave its own before hounding on. I have been watching colonies of animals, from chickens, mice, and garter snakes to some of the megafauna, for sixty years. And when they are not under stress you see plenty of delight and exuberance, particularly when young ones are splitting off and diligently getting a new group started. Biochemistry drives hunger and explains why animals consume one another. But what explains the elation, exuberance--this surplus snap of well-being that animals as well as naturalists feel, and people in Calcutta as much as in New York, or Arunachal Pradesh, for that matter?
Joy sprouts from squalor as well as in the middling classes, a perennial as well as a primitive emotion, as if propelled by a spin originating from the ur- or ultra-density of the Big Bang.Or should we claim that amphibians only acquired a capacity for glee after they became lizards? Or lizards only after they evolved into birds? Where and when did the perception of beauty begin?...
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Quick, before it disappears...
a patch of blue |
 What day is this? We're lucky here. So far. In this protected little dell. Snow, yes, and just as constant and cold as anywhere, but somehow less accumulation, a fraction of what other places see. I have friends in Surprise Valley who are utterly snowed-under. They lose power there, too. I remember how it was. Here, remarkably, since the outages of the first snows in October, all has been well. Knock wood. The llamas want tending but beyond that and splitting wood there's only reading and writing, cleaning and pacing, baking, occasional loud music and singing. They say this will continue through Tuesday. I can't conceive of it. I'll be very surprised if I don't see blue sky tomorrow. It's funny how the dogs go out for five minutes and come back in covered in snow. Ordinarily these circumstances would call for a prolonged session of desert movies--The Sheltering Sky, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Lawrence of Arabia. With popcorn and butter and hot cider. And if the whiteout greets us yet again tomorrow {Sunday)--will do. Up to now, though, my evening choices have me wallowing in winter--The Ice Storm, Fargo, Dr. Zhivago, McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Perverse. Saving the hot sand for true emergencies. Sort of Oh yeah? or So what!, or maybe Bring it on!
Too dark to take pictures just now. Wish I could record the howling wind. It really isn't letting up for a minute. The End of the World in Our Usual Bed in a Night Full of Snow. Yes, this'll do it, I think. This'll drive us back to the human race pretty good. |
