A month in paradise eventually comes to an end. As one
with an adventurous spirit, this is a fact I knew all too well. It was summer
in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom—July, one of the prettiest months—and my only
obligations were to my slept-in bed and the half-full woodshed. Winter would be
along soon. You could feel it whisper in the night.
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| Connor Island, common loon nesting ground, NEK, Vermont. Photo by Matt Reilly |
As I had many months to prepare for the sojourn, I was
bubbling with a diverse bucket list, though I was without an agenda or timeline
of any sort. That’s simply not how I operate. In the afternoons, and sometimes
before breakfast, after my duty to the woodshed was filled, I disappeared.
The tires of my mountain bike repurposed wintertime
snowmobile trails, dry and cobbled in the warm season. Hiking and bushwhacking
to unnamed ponds, mountainous peaks, mysterious rivulets, and feeder brooks
preceded my fishing efforts, and were enjoyed much the same, if not more for
the discovery. The larger ponds, Bald Hill and Newark, which gleam crystalline
within the folds of the mountain I called home, I plied thoroughly with an
aluminum-hull canoe, sometimes late into the night, and rarely without finding
finned supper. Minks and otters of the shoreline, fish, vistas, landmarks, and
intriguing features alike fell prey to the sharp memory of my digital lens.
Blueberries were picked after an afternoon swim in the frigid glacial lakes
with the dogs. Little time was lost for thinking.
There came a time when the day had not yet been
exhausted. Dinner had been concluded, and the late sunset of summer in New
England was only looming. A short bike ride to aid in metabolism, down an old
logging road and around a shallow, boggy pond, landed me at the lower end of
Bald Hill Pond.
I followed a trail of large boulders, extending out
into a shallow bay, hopping carefully all the way, and found a relatively flat
place on which to sit. My back to the few camps built upon the shoreline, human
habitation was undetectable, save for the faint smell of smoke and my own
thoughts. The cooling evening pulled air down from Bald Mountain, accented at
the peak by a locally recognized fire tower, pooling above the lake’s surface
the exquisite smells of spruce, hemlock, and maple.
Life was evident. The frilly howls of common loons
echoed through the hollows as quintessential reminders of the untamed character
of the North Woods, as they pinwheeled from one pond to the next.
The pond’s surface was calm, save for the erratic but
delicate dimples of egg-laying mayflies. Because of their small size and
constant movement, dimples are often the first indication of their presence
from a distance, and they focused my attention on the happenings in the film.
These insects spend most of their life as aquatic
nymphs. Should they be fortunate enough to evade the hungry gaze of a trout
during their time underwater, they become particularly vulnerable when they
reach maturity and ascend in the water column and attempt to wriggle free of
adolescence and into winged adulthood.
The successful adults I could see, celebrating their
victory by completing the circle of life. Upon depositing their embryos upon
Bald Hill’s glistening surface, the mayflies took off—up into the air, only to
disappear. It was then that an observant pair of finches took their turn in the
process of life, darting rapidly from the haven of an adjacent cedar tree into
the air to nab one of the unsuspecting parents, and returning to a limb to feed
and prepare to do it again.
Life is markedly short for the mayfly.
To look back on that time, when I had no job, no commitments,
from a time of intense study and work, I am thankful for the clarity it
provided.
It’s easy to lose sight of what’s important. Not
what’s important to society or our community, but what’s important to us as
individuals. That may seem an inherently selfish resolve, but without the time
to allow our own minds and souls to be stimulated, it is hard to be outwardly
and genuinely individual. We were all endowed with gifts meant to be
manifested, and without pausing from time to time to reflect on those, there is
waste. A gift is a terrible thing to waste.
*Originally published in The Rural Virginian
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