Have you ever had an idea that, upon reflection, you realize was years in the making?
This past August Jen and I spent a week on Hilton Head Island with Sarah, Zac, Oliver and Charlotte. Most of one morning I was on the floor with Charlotte, a month shy of her first birthday. We played with blocks, wood blocks ideal for a one year old. It’s fascinating, as you know, to observe a child Charlotte’s age immersed in the world held by her hands.
A thought arose - how it might be interesting to explore the life of a block and its many levels of existence. The tree it came from. It’s cellular structure and sub-atomic foundation. The soil and seed that had given it life. The sun and rain that had made it possible. The tree’s harvest and transformation into a long, straight flat piece of wood subdivided, eventually, into a size and shape a child can hold. And on and on, forward a few months or years and back millions, even billions of years more.
I held that block in my mind, turning it over and over from time to time in the weeks that followed. I didn’t tire of the notion but after a while I yearned for something more animated, something with blood coursing through its veins. I considered various creatures, great and small, but the ever present whisper always brought me back to its directive: that only a bug would do, and that it must be a walkingstick.
I was born with cerebral palsy and it took some time before I was able to walk. I shed the steel and leather braces shortly before the start of kindergarten. Freed of them, I felt that I was the master of my own universe. But my new found legs lagged behind my flights of imagination. I was awkward when walking, even more so when attempting to run. Thus, recess was an awkward time and I a mere observer of foot races, tag, and kick ball.
There was a tree on the far side of the playground. It wasn’t a big tree. Not an oak or evergreen. Perhaps it was a maple. Whatever its kind, I was able to pull myself up and nestle into the crotch of two stout limbs. I loved that little sanctuary. It suited me well.
One day while watching the action below, I observed an insect approach. I didn’t have a name for it but I was fascinated by its slender physique, thin powerful arms and legs, and its leaf like green. But what struck me, more than any other of its attributes, was its penetrating eyes. Eyes that gave me the impression that it could see deep inside me. In those moments, which I did not count, I came to the realization that intelligence is not the sole domain of humans.
For years, decades, I never had an equivalent encounter, until four years ago this month while camping in the desert of southeast Utah. I think it was the third morning. Exiting my leaf green tent to greet the sun, I discovered a walkingstick comfortably at home, clinging to the fine mesh of the door flap. It was just like the one from sixty plus years earlier, except that it was gray, like the hair on my head. We made eye contact and I felt the same penetrating gaze that had awakened that little boy in the tree on the edge of the playground.
Since returning from Japan, I’ve sat down a few times to edit “Travels With Pa” so that it might become the story of one man’s journey, and his great grandfather’s. One that could be held in the hands of others.
But that journey is over and I’m ready for another.
So I’ve decided to write about that bug. I don’t have a name for it. I didn’t even know if its male or female. But I do know it has a story to tell - about the history of all living things, and that which preceded them, going back millions, even billions of years ago.
I can’t share much more, that wouldn’t be any fun, except that there’s a boy in the story and the bug and the boy become best friends.
Tomorrow will be eleven months to the day from when Pa and I left for Lisbon. Enough time has passed that a new journey can begin - that of a bug and a boy and a world that fascinates them both.
I have tomorrow off. The gods permitting, I’ll start writing . . .
"I’m a bug. Some people call me a Diapheromera Femorata. Others call me a Common American Walkingstick. But I’m just an insect who left the comfort of home to embark on a journey of self discovery . . ."
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