Rock Creek summer

I was 12 when I chose to shoot a large frog sitting atop a downed tree. The gun was my own 22 rifle and my companion was a large dog named Smokey. Smokey was half Samoyed, half Norwegian Elkhound and looked so much like a wolf that he often frightened people, despite his inherent desire to be friendly to all.

The dog belonged to my father and normally went everywhere with him. But this summer, temporarily living on the banks of the Smith River in Northern California, Smokey was more often with me as I roamed the countryside. The U.S. Forest Service was building a road and Dad was the foreman. He and mom lived in a trailer in camp, and I slept in a large tent on a platform that stretched to the trailer's entrance and formed a deck during the day.

It was a wonderful way for a twelve-year-old to spend a summer and my days were filled with long walks in the forest, exploring—despite the no trespassing signs—the distant, empty lodge property where the only beach could be found, and wading the rocky creek that fed into the river.

I was on the way to that beach when I took aim at the frog. I didn't kill it, my bullet struck just under it and the frog (or toad) jumped a foot in the air before disappearing from sight. I searched but never found it. I may have felt guilty about try to kill a creature who wasn't threatening or even bothering me, but if so the feeling didn't last. I was always looking for targets. Most of the time they were twigs or wildflowers. A large frog sitting on a log with his back to me was too good to pass up.

I don't know what sparked that memory, but it has been haunting me for days. Maybe it was the quick camping trip to the Klickitat river last weekend that stirred the image. Maybe it was just a tendency to reminisce when books or TV or the increasingly depressing news didn't satisfy my need for entertainment.

Whatever it was, it brought with it a whiff of the natural world and the merits of spending time there. Other memories of that summer are hazier, it was after all a long time ago. But my deep connection with that wildness, and the self-assurance it grew in me, remains visceral. Maybe that is what I was meant to recall.

Living close to nature is vital to our well being and each day we seem to move farther and farther away. We speak sometimes of nature, we admire the flora and fauna, we praise the landscape and its views. But we see a video of a bear fishing in a river and assume "other." We watch as ants carry away the leavings of our lunch and think "other." But we are the bear and the ant. We grew from the same earth, the same elements; we may even share DNA. But we live as though we are disparate creatures, unattached to everything but ourselves.

If nothing else the coronavirus should forcefully remind us that we are of the natural world and when we dismiss that interconnectedness we suffer. We can reclaim our inheritance by acknowledging, honoring, and caring for the earth. Nature holds no grudges; she's always ready to welcome us back.

The twelve-year-old alone in the woods with a gun and a dog has been subsumed by other experiences, places, and ideas. But she awakens occasionally to remind me that life is more than the materialist trappings I have created to sustain me. I am, probably, less self assured than that young girl; age may support wisdom but it also demands acknowledgement of one's failings. That being the case, I do hope the frog has forgiven me.