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I am on day five of a wilderness camping experience. We've had four sun-filled balmy days. We've canoed, hiked and portaged and it's been quite an adventure. The temperature dropped last night and it started to rain. I don't like cold. I don't like wet. The thought of hanging around base camp on a wet day under a windy tarp and dripping trees is not my notion of fun. After breakfast, I go back to the tent and hunkered down for a long snooze. That brings me as far as lunch. So far, so good. After lunch everyone goes their own way. As I sit close to the struggling fire nursing a coffee, I grumble out loud for not bringing a good book to read. A voice pipes up. "Never mind. There's lots to do here." I smiled. I wondered when the old crone would show up. Fancy she would choose today. As I ready to argue with my invisible mentor, I'm distracted by a short and straggly spruce tree, close to the river, loaded with raindrops. The droplets seem to be hanging on for dear life and I become totally absorbed. Aha! That's what I'll do - I'll count them! Now, you have to understand that I am very driven. My husband once gave me a T-shirt that said "A driven woman lives here." I wore the T shirt out. I also like a challenge, so immediately my brain starts to compute the best way to tackle the big count. Time is of the essence, n'est-ce pas? There must be a quick and efficient way of doing this. Swiftly, I beam in on the left hand side half way up the tree, and figure that represents the average branch size. Methodically I count from the outer edge to the centre ... 47- 48 - 49 and round it off to 50. Aha! A speedy scan determines there are ten branches per side. My brain computes again. Twenty times 50 ... and if I turned the tree around 90 degrees there would be another 20 branches ... so there are 2000 droplets on that tree, give or take five percent. There. That's done. I heave a satisfied sigh, knowing I've done this in less than two minutes. I pause for another sip of coffee. The voice pipes up -- this time, with an attitude. "You missed a few. In a hurry?" Just what I need -- a meddling angel in the middle of the woods. I think, OK, so I took a few shortcuts. You win. I'll go back and to do it your way. I focus on the top of this puny little tree and start to count. I'm bored by the time I hit number 40 but giving up is not my style. Around 800 the counts are coming along - dum dum dum dum - eight hundred and four. My eyes start to droop. I feel my head bob. Just then, the voice seeps in again. "So what?" What do you mean, so what? "So what do you see?" See? Well, I see a lot of droplets. Exasperated, the voice fairly shouts: "But what do they look like?" Spare me. A drop of water is a drop of water old girl. Oh well, I'll humor her. I move the bucket I'm sitting on a foot closer to the tree. Suddenly, as if a curtain is drawn on stage, I see a cast of thousands. The shapes! Some drops are like miniature eggs. Others are like giant children's play balls. The colors! Some have a gray, glue-like density while others sport the hues of the rainbow. One in particular catches my eye. It is pale blue and has patterns of lace imbedded in it's womb. Some drops hover hauntingly like the mist on the lake, while others shiver and shake, in anticipation of the plunge. The variety is endless. I am spellbound. A couple of hours slip by. Gradually I realize that I have been gifted a profound insight. My notion of reality has been altered. It's like a chimera yet as real as the angels' kiss that brushed my cheek as I reached over to put more wood on the fire. May the lesson remain.
My Incredible Journey by Sandra Phinney, first published April, 2002. Designed & maintained by Outdoor Nova Scotia, Liverpool, N.S. BOT 1KO Material protected by copyright. Last revised: April 15, 2002 |
