Francesca G. Varela's Blog, page 20

To Hear The Earth Speak

 

     They told me I was deaf, but I didn’t believe them. The music was always there. Always strongest at the sunrise, bending the ancient colors of the sky until they were inside me.

I knew sound as I saw it. The yellow sap of cedar trees sang directly into me, gave all the essence of its life into watery sound. I breathed it in, along with rain-soaked wind.

Everywhere I went, the music followed. My parents shined their eyes on me, assured me I was just like Beethoven; composing entire symphonies in our heads, neither of us able to hear them. I tried once to write the music down, but, unlike Beethoven, I’d never heard outside my head. Notes were meaningless without knowing their sound. And instruments were nothing more than pretty things to touch.

My music must have been incomparably unique, unbounded by influence. But no one else would ever listen to it. It belonged only to me and the forest.

Nothing made me happier than dogwood flowers. It meant the sun would soon touch the top of the maple trees, that turkey vultures would paint distant circles in the afternoon clouds.

One summer night when the air was hot I spread my sleeping bag out next to a patch of salmon-berries. Along the river, where the trees thinned, I watched the water darken.

Then the stars sang. Lyra, Corona Borealis, Ursa Major. None could ever rival Venus, nor match the voice that sprang with it from the horizon. All of it came in darts, accompanied by the milky way’s steady pulse. I laid upon the bare ground, forgetting my sleeping bag. Eyes constantly stroking the sky, I let the leaves cluster in my hair. Beneath me was all the curve of the Earth, and I could feel it hum.

Throughout the night I kept my eyes open. I absorbed the swinging lobes of the world above me. Felt the breeze finally cool. In the morning I could still hear it, all of it. Lingering on the bird’s faces. Resting upon the dry fragrance of the soil.

It wasn’t until I went away to college that the music ever ceased. I had no choice but to go to the city. And there, concrete muffled any sound. In long winds after the full moon I could feel music start, sometimes. But it wasn’t joyous, nor did it ache. All I felt was numbness. Cold. So I brushed it away.

Each day another melody dimmed. I had never lived in silence before, and I feared it.

With my hands I could speak, though not everyone understood. I was known only as the deaf girl, softly pitied from afar. Through the window of my dorm room I could see buildings, cars. I was keenly aware that there was no earth beneath my feet.

But there were good things, too, about school. A month into the first term a friend asked me on a road trip to the coast. Her brother was deaf, and she knew how to sign. I hadn’t been to the beach for many years. It had been so long, in fact, that I’d forgotten what it sounded like.

We drove through forests, over hills. I rested my forehead against the car window and watched the branches of douglas firs. Ferns, fallen logs, walls of moss. Just like my forest. My chest opened, music rising. It grew louder, louder. Around a bend we wove until… there it was. The ocean. That beautiful plane of water that sang in deep, eternal sighs.

Never had I heard grander music. Then I knew. It was all the world singing.

By the time we’d reached the water, the rain had come. As it piled over us, I slid my feet into the freezing ocean. Droplets of sea and sky rested on my eyelashes.

In the rain I heard my forest. I listened to the river’s smooth currents. I heard the alder trees bow in the wind.

There was something deeper than memory in which I could carry the music. Something nameless. I would forever be connected to the forest. It had raised me. Sung to me. Given me ears.

While the sun was buried beneath the waves, we sat in the sand. Every string of the sky was red. The opposite of the sunrise, but just as sweet.

Any numbness fell away. It was as though I had never even left the forest.

In all ways it had become a part of me.

Previously published in the 2013 issue of  The Ecotone Journal of Environmental Studies

Tagged: Author, Fiction, Life, Music, Musings, Nature, Prose, Publishing, Random, Thoughts, Wildlife

The Eyes of the Owl

There is a tree in my forest that I love more than all the others. I call it my forest, but it’s not really mine. It doesn’t change because I claim it, but continues breathing and flowing and catching the wind. So I claim it not.

     Below the canopy, ferns and ivy push through a floor of dead leaves and dirt. Drops of rain bounce from their faces, seeping into the earth. The creek yells of all it has seen, ripe with heavy, moving water.

From above falls the rough cry of the Steller’s jay, the murmur of the finch. Squirrels cling to thin branches, and they scrape white bark from maple trees.

Hidden in the boughs of the fir tree sits the owl. Watching. Blinking calmly. Then soaring noiselessly across the creek. That’s why this tree is my favorite.

We first saw the owl four springs ago while soaking in our hot tub. Great wings came from the darkness, resting on a cedar’s branch right above our heads. It wasn’t a bat, as I’d guessed, but a silent presence staring down at us. I screamed and laughed in surprise. My parents hushed me, but this creature wasn’t afraid of us. For so long I’d been taught that animals should cower from humans. But not the owl.

A few days later I was walking past the window, on the way to quiet my barking dog, when I saw the wings again. I ran outside, followed my growling dog’s gaze to the fir tree. A feathered gray head gazed at us. With my hands over my mouth in awe, I watched. There, in the dimming light, I first looked into the eyes of the owl. And he looked back.

Dark almond eyes smiling, darker than anything before or since. There was a primal, wordless, connection; a fullness in my chest. This is a wild animal, and it’s not afraid. That moment changed me. I felt the energy of the owl, and of all that lives. They are not worse or lower than humans, just different.

Within the coming weeks, a smaller, brown owl appeared. This one felt meaner, somehow. Or at least sterner. I looked up their song online and found out their name — barred owl, Strix varia. With spots on their back I thought they might be spotted owls, but the white stripes on their stomachs told me otherwise. They were mates, I guessed, and I imagined that they lived in the dead, hollow tree at the edge of the forest.

Time passed without the owls. My parents said that they’d just been a symbol of good luck and had gone away. “No,” I told them, “they’re still here, I can feel it. They’ll stay until the dead tree falls down.”

Then we began to hear their calls again, the rounded coo-coo-coo-roo falling in pitch at the end. I was right. They were still there, still perched in that same branch of the fir tree on most afternoons.

When I came home from long days of high school I would rush to the forest, lean against a nearby cedar tree, and learn from the owl. Each time I would wave, make eye contact. I wanted them to know me. Then I would crouch down, almost in deference. And I watched. Let the wind move you. Be patient. Be content. On days like this I found that even the rain was beautiful.

Spring came again. A tiny, fluffy baby owl greeted me from the fir tree one afternoon. It was frozen, unmoving. The brown owl flew over and sat next to her baby.

The owls visited often over the years, though with less frequency over time. The baby owls grew into cautious adults. They moved on. The dead tree fell down just last week. We didn’t hear it thud into the creek. I woke up and it was there, immutable, coarse and pale against the muddy water. The owls haven’t visited in over a year.

But I have seen four owls dance together in the shadows, I have hummed to their owlets’ sharp screech, I have knelt on bare earth at their feet. Even though I haven’t seen them, I think of them often. My owls. I think of them as my owls. Not because they’re mine, but because I love them.

Tagged: Author, Childhood, Life, Musings, Nature, Owls, Personal, Philosophy, Prose, Random, Thoughts, Wildlife, Writing

Never Cry Wolf

What would you do if, beneath the forest canopy, you heard a wolf’s howl?

The chance of such an experience occurring in Oregon is low, but growing. As of 2012, there were 53 wolves within our state’s boundaries.

Wolves were once abundant in the United States; their numbers ranged from 200,000 to 500,000, until habitat fragmentation and deliberate extermination by humans led to their decline. By 1960, only 300 wolves remained in all the continental United States, and were relegated to upper Michigan and Minnesota. Luckily, scientists and environmental advocates have fought to reintroduce wolves to their historical prevalence in other parts of the country, including Oregon.

Yet, how do most of us see Canis lupus? Most of us fear them, and perhaps this fear, instilled in us from childhood fairytales, has never been justified at all.

In 1963 Farley Mowat published Never Cry Wolf. He is famous throughout Canada and the world for his popular books about nature. Mowat has been called controversial for disapproving of the United State’s environmental policies, for criticizing the oppression of the Inuit people, and for questioning the way nature is viewed in society. Born in 1921 in Saskatoon, Canada, he’s won numerous awards, such as the Governor General’s Award, the Leacock Medal for Humor, the Canadian Centennial Medal, the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Medal, and the Gemini Award.

Never Cry Wolf is an autobiography that details Mowat’s intimate study of arctic wolves; commissioned by the Canadian government to prove the correlation between wolves and declining caribou numbers, Mowat was shipped to the arctic tundra of Keewatin. There, he found a wolf den, and, upon venturing in, he stumbled right into a bed of squirming wolf pups. One would expect him to be viciously attacked. Whether for protection or predation, the grown wolves should’ve retaliated, right?

They did no such thing, and instead those wolves, affectionately named George, Angeline, and Uncle Albert, taught Mowat their true nature.

The caribou migrated through the arctic, their herds dwindling but still numerous. According to the Canadian government, arctic wolves were caribou-massacring savages. In reality, they never took more than they needed, nor did they kill for sport. The wolves would only go after the weakest animals, and when they did make a kill, all of it was used and savored.

Ootek, an Inuit companion of the author, explained their relationship: “The caribou feeds the wolves, but it is the wolf who keeps the caribou strong. We know that if it were not for the wolf there would be no caribou at all, for they would die as weakness spread among them” (200).

In the summer the caribou were absent from the wolves’ territory, and in such times, they feasted on mice, which, along with supplements of fish and other small rodents, nourished them.

Not only were they more docile than expected, these wolves were almost humanlike through affectionate interactions with each other. They spoke to one another in a range of sounds rivaling our own, and they played, hugged, and babysat. Neighboring wolf families would cross territories just to visit. Strikingly tolerant of other animals (including humans), the wolf kills only to eat, “which is probably one of the main differences distinguishing him from man” (203).

Mowat writes this all in a lighthearted, personal way. He defies boring scientist stereotypes, using instead a crisp and humorous tone alight with passion. The wolves were more than just test subjects. He loved them, revered them, and came close enough almost to join them, which makes the reader love the wolves, too, and question all that they’ve ever thought about wolves and about all other wild creatures.

So what had really happened to the caribou? Hunters were killing them. Not to eat, and not because they needed it, but for money. They had been lying to the government about how many caribou they were really killing and the government believed them, and the blame remained on the wolves. Then the hunters started killing wolves, too.

Even without such matters to complicate things, tensions between man and wolf today are high. Why have we had fear trained into us? Why do a few slain livestock breed such hate among ranchers, when we have taken so much from the wolves?

Of course wolves are forced to invade our territory occasionally. We’ve hardly left anything else.



As the caribou demonstrate, wolves keep ecosystems in balance. Wolves are known as a keystone species; without them, their prey would grow overabundant, or pass on weak genes. We should welcome wolves back into Oregon and it seems this transition has already begun; according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, they are no longer considered an endangered species in eastern Oregon due to recovery.

Tagged: Author, Book Review, Books, Farley Mowat, Fiction, Life, Nature, Never Cry Wolf, Philosophy, Thoughts, Wildlife, Wolves, Writing

My Novel Won An Award!

So the other day I opened up my e-mail. Subject: Moonbeam Medalist Update – please respond. Turns out that, although I’d entered the Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards months ago, I had somehow also unsubscribed from their e-mail list. “We want to be sure you’ve heard about winning a Moonbeam Award,” the e-mail said.

Congratulations on being a 2014 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards Medalist!

Is this real, I thought? Is this some kind of a weird, generic e-mail that everyone got? Still, my heart quickened. I couldn’t even remember exactly what category I was entered in. I opened up the link to see the results. After a quick glance over the winning book covers, I didn’t see mine. For a moment I thought I was right–that it was a mistake. Then I scrolled through at a slower pace, and I realized that the silver and bronze medalists were also listed next to the gold medalist’s cover in their group. I read through each one, until, finally, beneath Best First Book, I saw BRONZE: Call of the Sun Child by Francesca G. Varela. In hindsight, I really should’ve just clicked “control-f” and found my name that way, but, hey, I found it anyway! And I’m grateful and astounded that I won an award. My third-grade self–who wrote sprawling, sloppy books with titles like “The Little Snail” and read them to her classmates–would be happily surprised to know that, by 21, she would be an award-winning author. I still can’t believe it myself!

Want to learn more about my young-adult novel, Call of the Sun Child? Visit my website!

Tagged: Author, Books, Fiction, Life, Personal, Publishing, Random, Thoughts, Writing

People’s Climate March – Portland

I stood next to the Willamette river on Sunday, shouldering all the strength of the sun. It was 90 degrees, nearly windless. I sought refuge in the shadows of my fellow protesters. Our eager eyes were turned toward the stage, where an hour’s worth of inspirational speakers–including native peoples, climate justice crusaders, interfaith leaders, moms, law students, even the governor of Oregon–spoke to us about environmental justice, about making our voices heard, about standing with the Earth, about preventing coal train terminals that are proposed throughout the Pacific Northwest; they talked about how immediate action is necessary, about how we should think of future generations, about how we can strengthen our economy and improve the environmental situation, about how we should put people and planet over profits. Then, with a bamboo-stick-sign hoisted above my head, I followed the cheering masses along the river path. We marched through the heat. The metallic smell of the dirty river wafted coolly over us every few minutes. We crossed the street and walked down the middle of the road. Cars honked at us angrily. But we continued on, the many thousands of us. We circled back to the park where we had begun. And I, for one, was very glad to have contributed my voice and my presence to the preservation of all that lives.

Tagged: Author, Life, Musings, Nature, Personal, Philosophy, Random, Thoughts, Writing

The Night Sky

I dreamed of the night sky.

This is strange, because I don’t think it’s ever happened before. When I was little, about four or five, I had a nightmare that the sun disappeared. But, since then, my dreams have avoided the sky’s sunlit and starlit glare.

Last night I dreamed of Arcturus, the brightest star in the constellation Boötes. Or is it Böotes? I have no idea how to pronounce it, but I know it as one of the summer constellations, best visible in the northwest around 11 pm this time of year. It’s one of the few constellations visible behind Portland’s ugly light pollution.

Often, I’ll look out and see the smart, red glare of Arcturus, and I think first of Mars. When I first noticed it, I thought it was Mars. But in my dream I knew, without a doubt, that this star was Arcturus. I stopped at the window and looked up into the half-cloudy sky, and, there, Arcturus shone brightly, redly, vividly. That was my whole dream. So simple. So strange. I have to wonder if, perhaps, it means something. Maybe it was my deeper unconscious telling me to leave the city, and wander in search of darker skies? Maybe it was a moment of spiritual significance? Or maybe it  was just a reminder not to forget that the sky is there, and that it’s beautiful? All I know is that, tonight, if the clouds dissipate, I’m going to stand at the window, watch the night sky, and greet Arcturus’ red-tinged light. I guess that will mean my dream has come true.

Tagged: Author, Life, Musings, Nature, Personal, Philosophy, Prose, Random, Thoughts, Writing

Waterfall – A Poem

 

Where, wind, do you come from?
From the curve of waterfalls?
From the chill of low, wet valleys?
Do the rocks know? The boulders below the stream, 
and moss-heavy on the shore? 
Wind and breeze,
do you come from the moon,
from tree branches at dusk,
or do you come from ferns that toss and rustle and climb
up the rocky chests of waterfalls? 

 

Tagged: Poetry

The Wilderness Experience – A Short Story

Anna dropped to her stomach and peered over the hill. She scooted forward, her forearms itchy from the grass. Some guy about her age—college age—stood in the meadow below, near the water, pulling silver packets of food from an enormous, dusty backpack. He glanced her way and she lowered her chin, desperate not to be seen spying on him like a weirdo.

 

When she looked again, through the slanted light, through the tall grass thick with clovers, he was crouched at the base of an oak. She watched him gather dry moss and sticks into a tinder bundle. That meant he was definitely staying the night. She was hoping he would leave so she could have the river to herself.

No matter what, she would have to camp by the water; it was almost dusk, and the river was the only water source for miles. Her two stainless-steel bottles had been clanging together, empty, for the past day. The best she could do was walk down the other side of the hill and camp farther upstream. But no matter how far she walked or how hard she tried to avoid him, there was nothing she could do about the outline of his tent in the open distance of the plain. So much for her wilderness experience.

It was her last night and she wanted to be alone. Really alone, one last time. She hadn’t seen another human for six days, and she didn’t want to start now. That was why she had decided to go for a week-long backpacking trip in the first place; for the cottonwood fluff blowing over the river, past the bowing heads of scouler willows; for the honks of red-winged blackbirds on their cattails at dusk; for the pale reflection of stars on the water. Not people. She didn’t want this random guy around. He probably didn’t want her, either; as far as she could tell, he was camping alone. Maybe that was because he was secretly a killer, or a rapist. Who knew. Maybe he was just an annoying frat guy. Best to avoid him.

A bug crawled over her thigh. She brushed it off without looking and wriggled carefully backwards, away from the crest of the hill. Then it stung her. She jumped up and screamed—abrupt, high-pitched, echoing against trees and sky. It was her first sting from either a bee or wasp, whatever it had been. She felt like she had been shot in the leg. Anna rubbed the bump as she limped hurriedly to her backpack. She hoisted it to her shoulders and rushed down the hill, her worn hiking boots slipping every few steps. When she was safely under the cover of wide, sun-soaked leaves, she sat and surveyed the sting.

“Shit,” Anna muttered, because the pain had subsided to an ache and there was no bullet wound—it looked like a mild rash. She felt stupid for screaming.

For a moment she listened to the robins’ songs, already shifting from the glistening trills of afternoon to the dusk gathering calls. She felt the earth beneath her and relaxed a little. The winds changed direction, transitioning, too, for sunset. Anna breathed in the sticky, sap-warmed breath of the forest. She stood, unsure of where to walk next, or where she stood in relation to the guy.

She chose a direction and plodded through the forest. Suddenly the branches of a nearby vine maple shivered. Anna froze. The guy, the same guy she wanted to avoid, emerged, looking pale and out of place. He wore a striped tank-top and cargo shorts, and his hair was cropped to near-baldness. To Anna, he seemed especially harsh in contrast to the gentle lighting of the forest; unreal, like a clunky cartoon character.
The guy stepped timidly around the bushes, inching toward her until they stood on either side of a fallen, shin-high, moss-covered log.

“Hi,” he said.

Goddamn it, she thought. Her week-long streak of solitude was ruined. Just leave, guy, she thought. Just leave. “Oh—uh, hi.” Anna coughed, her voice dry and out of use. “Nice to see a fellow backpacker out here.” She waved. It felt robotic.

The guy smiled, exposing slightly crooked front teeth. He didn’t seem threatening. Definitely not a killer or rapist.

“Yeah, how’s it going?” he asked. “I haven’t seen anyone else nearby, but did you hear someone scream not too long ago? I came over to see if they’re okay, but I don’t know where it came from. Sounded brutal.”

Anna wondered if she would go running toward a screaming person. Probably not. “Oh, that was just me,” she said. She tried to keep her voice low and steady. “I got stung by a bee.” She pointed to the top of her thigh, feeling infinitely stupid for screaming—it would be so easy for him to make fun of her.

“Well that is brutal. I hate bee stings—I would’ve screamed like that too. You got the stinger out, right?”

Anna was grateful that he didn’t make her feel worse. She wanted to be polite, but she also didn’t want him to think she was interested in this conversation—she wanted him to leave so she could be alone with the earth. So she could stop making a fool of herself. She rested her foot on the spongy fallen log. It smelled like rot. “There was nothing in there, not that I could see,” she said. “But maybe I missed it.”

“Maybe it was a wasp. They don’t leave stingers,” he said.

“Yeah, probably. I don’t know. It was my first time being stung. I didn’t really see what it was.” She crossed her arms, then uncrossed them and took off her backpack, just for something to do with her hands.

“You’re lucky, then. Wasp stings are always better than bee stings. Last backpacking trip I ran into a whole bee hive. I just barely stepped on it and they actually chased me. It was ridiculous. They chased me until I jumped in the lake I was camped by. I got stung at least thirty times. But I was just like, hey, being stung is part of the wilderness experience, right?”

“Everything out here is part of the wilderness experience,” she said, laughing.

“Exactly. That’s why I love it so much.” He looked up. The maples were moving slowly, their branches scratching against each other. “All of it, all of this. It’s everything. Being out here… it makes me feel strong. Alive. Connected. You know?”

Anna nodded vigorously, unsure of how to express how deeply she agreed. “Like we’re animals again.”

“Exactly.” He smiled and shifted his weight.

Anna said quickly, “What was your name?”

“Greg,” he said. “You?”

“Anna.” She crossed the corpse of the fallen tree so they could shake hands. Both of them had dirt under their fingernails. His skin was softer than she thought it would be.
“Nice to meet you, Anna.” He pulled away. “Well, guess I’ll be on my way. Get a fire started before dark.”

“Good idea. Have a good night,” she said, and he walked away, stomping over fallen branches, flailing his arms to brush away spider-webs. Anna crouched down, ignoring the prick of her wasp sting. She pretended to tie her boot, and she watched him wind clumsily through the forest until he was out of sight. She sighed, then, as the color left the trees, as the robins chirped louder for the setting sun. Because she realized having someone around wasn’t so bad after all.

Tagged: Author, Fiction, Life, Nature, Prose, Thoughts, Writing

The Meadow

Every time I visit the meadow, something is different. The grass is cut, or they’ve trimmed the wild laurel bushes whose bark is smooth like tamarinds. A few winters ago the ivy-choked tree fell, its body colliding with trailing blackberry, buttercups, and clovers. I don’t even know what species it was. I didn’t teach myself to identify the trees or the plants until after it had already fallen. By the time I could knowledgeably survey its carcass, the leaves had already withered back into soil.

This is the meadow where the owls live. Where coyotes occasionally yip and cry. Where deer pass silently through, leaving no trace except piles of hardened pellets. This is where I found a clean, white raccoon skull, fresh enough not to have yellowed. Where I’ve knelt in the dirt, among mole hills and centipedes, and breathed in the warmth of the open air.

I guess most people wouldn’t even call it a meadow. It’s a vacant lot. Weed-ridden, they’d call it. Underutilized. That’s why they’re going to shove three houses onto it.
These, I assume, are the same people who have extinguished all the other open lots in my suburban town. All the fields, dotted in spring with plum trees and flowering goldenrod; all the fragmented forestlands; all the vine-y underbrush; all gone. All houses. Mansions, mostly. Now instead of fields we have rows of matching, lifeless, excessively large squares. I understand that people need houses (although they certainly don’t need to be so large or so full of unnecessary possessions), but we can’t cover up every last inch of living earth.

Don’t they see how profane this threat is? Weeds are weeds, in their minds. Opposums and moles are repulsive, and raccoons are a nuisance. Yet, in my mind, despite the invasiveness of certain “weeds” and urban-adapted animals, and the harm they often cause native species, they are still alive, and, therefore, still beautiful. And, until ecological restoration attempts make more headway, such degraded, patchy ecosystems are all the nature us city-dwellers (human and otherwise) have daily access to.

That is, of course, unless they continue covering up all the open spaces. It seems the future holds nothing but concrete and quiet evenings, when even the owl and the coyote have been pushed away, and no one is there to sing.

Tagged: Author, Life, Musings, Nature, Personal, Philosophy, Random, Thoughts, Writing

Weavers of the Forest

A spider walked on my bare arm today, and it didn’t bite me. First I felt the web pop, then the gentle tick of running. Surprised, I flicked it off.  The spider fled  far from its torn home, striped legs flickering.

Long ago I taught myself not to fear spiders. Their webs hang between every tree in the forest. They are doorways, unavoidable; clear ribbons enfolding each branch. At first I would carefully deconstruct their work with a stick, only to see it rebuilt within minutes. The best method is to wave a twig blindly in front of you, so it clears away these invisible linens before they hit your face.

Of course, sometimes they surprise you. I’ve pulled shreds of spider webs out of my teeth, and plucked them from my eyelashes. Desperately, I have shaken my hair to rid spiders from my scalp. It can be annoying to itch away the fiber from your forehead; to feel it and grapple for it, but have it stay.

Those who fear spiders are usually not familiar with the forest. To move gracefully between webs, to spot the invisible lines even if the light is wrong, takes time to learn. 

I apologize to the spiders as I demolish their masterpieces. Spiders are not so much obstacles as guardians. They watch over the forest, and scare away those who do not know it– those who do not love it. 

Tagged: Author, Life, Musings, Nature, Philosophy, Random, Thoughts, Writing