Taking Notice

Pa and I were trained to lawyer, a useful skill at times, but a limited way of being in the world when all is said and done.

I sometimes tell people I’m a “recovering lawyer,” twelve years since formal retirement and not fully free of it. There are stretches when the law seems aeons past but then some provocation or slight triggers a “lawyerly response” and relapse occurs.

Pa and I have talked about this. He understands. Seventy years since his own retirement, nearly sixty since Bea’s passing and fifty since his own. And yet it happens, most often when he’s out with friends. A simple conversation turned scholarly debate then argument. Far removed from the courtroom yet the urge to win rises up.

“In the moment,” he told me recently, “I’m overcome by it. Later I regret it.”

So when the opportunity was presented to return to the jungle with a naturalist, we seized upon it.

A naturalist’s way of being in the world is so foreign from ours. There’s no winning or losing, or even right or wrong. A naturalist, when true to his or her calling, is in it for the “awe,” for the sheer delight of taking notice of what has always been.

We could hardly sleep. Sunrise couldn’t come soon enough. And when it did,

we were already there.

It’s not difficult to move from Green Chwadi into to the jungle. Already surrounded by it, the short walk just a necessary stretch.

Suhdan was our guide, mentor and teacher. Born Hindu Brahmin and trained as a scientist, he’s highly skilled and yet possessed of an intuitive sense of the mystery energizing the natural world.

Moving through what looked to Pa and me as mere thicket,

he would gently command:

“Look, look here,” or “Please, listen.”

At the rhino’s watering hole

he pointed out the fern growing from the dung.

And as the smallest of birds moved from tree

to tree,

he would name it, then identify it with image so it might impress upon our memories.

Passing by an insignificant bush, he would call us back to see it, touch it, and learn of its medicinal value.

For Suhdan, the spider’s dwelling is a miracle,

a tree home a marvel to behold,

and squirrel’s tail a delight to caress.

There is no hierarchy in the bird kingdom for Suhdan.

The eagle

no more or less important than the wild chicken.

The rhino

no greater than the flowers populating the jungle floor.

Standing in the middle of grassland,

he mimicked the call of nearby lovers and then, to again impress upon our memories, searched for their image.

Leading us back, he spotted something at rest,

cautioned that we observe in silence,

then requested we follow him on a safer path.

On our return, we came upon the familiar,

respected by Suhdan just as much as the wild,

and were soon back home at Green Chwadi.