When I was a child growing up in California's San Fernando Valley, a trip to Los Angeles was something special. Moving from a rural area to an urban area It acted in leaps and bounds. During one of these exciting opportunities, while walking down the sidewalk with my mother, I suddenly stopped, captivated by the pattern of sunlight caught in the spiral imperfection of the window pane. An unknown elderly woman in In her linen coat and dark hat, she found herself at a loss for words, saying how remarkable it was that children noticed such things.
I have never forgotten the texture of this event. Whenever I recall it, a wave of emotion runs through me, not so much from the consciousness of my young self, but from a sense of responsibility towards the children. For I know how strongly the woman's words affected me at that moment. As far as I can tell, their effect has lasted throughout my life.
Today, years later, I live in a rainforest in western Oregon, on the banks of a mountain river in a relatively untouched landscape, surrounded by 150-foot Douglas firs, fragile calypso orchids, and clearings where wild berries grow. White-footed hamsters and big-eared deer, mink, and coyotes are found here. My wife and I don't have children, but children we know, or children whose parents are close to us, come here often. They always want to go to the forest. And I'm wondering what to tell them..
At first, years ago, I probably said too much. With an encyclopedic perspective, I would determine the names of plants or the names of birds that fly through at a given time of year. I gradually reduced the amount of what I said. After a while, except for an answer to a question or a passing remark on the subtle difference between a twig of a giant sedge and a converging sedge, I he spoke only as many words as were required to clarify the details.
I remember once finding a fragment of a raccoon jaw in an alder thicket. I sat down next to two children who were accompanying me and encouraged them to find out who it was - with only three preserved teeth in part of the upper jaw as their only clue. The shape and arrangement of the teeth suggested what the animal had eaten. With the help of some visual extrapolation, its size also emerged clearly.. There were other clues in the immediate vicinity that, along with what I could add about the climate and terrain, spoke to how this animal lived and how its broken jaw ended up here. The children concluded that it was a raccoon. Tiny teeth marks at the edge of the broken bone then told of a mouse starving for calcium.
We put the jaw back in place and moved on.
Knowing more about raccoons and the subtle differences in bone structure, we could have guessed more: for example, whether it was male or female. But what we had deduced on our own was enough. Even after several hours, the jaw, now lost in the forest clearing behind us, continued to live a life of its own. It was subtly connected to everything else we talked about that afternoon.
In talking to children who might one day develop a lasting interest in natural history—as writers, scientists, filmmakers, anthropologists—I have found that extrapolating from a single fragment of the whole is the most stimulating experience I can share with them. I think children know that almost anyone can learn to name things; the impression it makes on them in this regard is fleeting. But they understand that what requires a lifetime of study is the existence and nature of innumerable relationships: it is these relationships, not the things themselves, that ultimately move the human imagination.
It has often occurred to me that the brightest children are fascinated by metaphor – by what in the set of relations concerning the raccoon shows as something that goes beyond the raccoon. What you are ultimately trying to explain to children is that everything that a person finds on the edge of their own senses – the piercing voice of a Canadian wren, the dense scent of a smoky mountain ash wafting through the air – is wind from spring willows, the brightness of beaver-scattered wood chips – they are related. The indestructibility of these bonds gives us a taste of permanence that nourishes the heart and paralyzes one of the most insidious human anxieties, the one that says: you don't belong here, you are unnecessary.
Whenever I wander with a child, I think about how much I've seen disappear in my life. What Will this person stay here until they reach my age? If she senses something ineffable in the landscape, will I know enough to support her in that? To show her somehow—as we hug Douglas firs or stand by a river, throwing stones across its undulating banks, or as we pull a bulb of lovage from the ground and taste a taste so much wilder than the potatoes of the previous evening—that yes, when people talk about violent death, spiritual rapture, compassion, futility, final causes, they are drawing on forty thousand years of human contemplation of this.
The most touching expression I have ever encountered in a child in the woods came at the heron's tracks on a strip of contained mud. We were kneeling next to the palm prints. We felt the stream vibrate in the mud and sand. The sun gave us it was fried in the hair. Our shoes were soaked with water. That expression said: Until now, I had no idea that I needed someone much older to affirm the feeling I had about life. I can now grow old knowing that I don't have to lose him anymore.
The quickest way for a child in the forest to open the door that leads to the smallest room is by learning the name of each individual thing. The door leading to the cathedral is distinguished by hesitation over whether to speak at all, and by not sifting the senses by example. When one speaks, it should only be to express as best one can how beautifully everything fits together, to indicate how long and Passionate peace can come from this knowledge.
Translated by Luděk Čertík.