Nature

Late one stormy night while driving the back roads of Chicago I spied Mr. Fox and Mr. Rabbit in close proximity. The former was on the move with his long bushy tail trailing straight out behind him, except that is when he stopped to mark every other tree. The latter, with ears erect and tracking, looked alert despite being as still as Michelangelo’s David.

To the north lie the crumbling wall of an ancient cemetery, and to the south a tall uninviting, but unobtrusive green corrugated metal fence of a large industrial concern. My wife’s relatives repose just over the north wall and it is also the location of my first summer job where I most likely cut the grass around their graves. Thus it, the cemetery, is a familiar place. Not in the least creepy or at least not until I saw Mr. Fox and began to think of his nighttime exploits.

He looked dusky, as all city dwelling animals tend to look. Go to the suburbs and the squirrel’s fur radiates multiple hues, but here in my bungalow’s backyard they come in any color as long as it is dull grey. And that goes for the sparrows and possums. I am not sure about the skunks. I only smell them as they pass under my backyard windows. Of all the animals that inhabit my little corner of Chicago the raccoons seem the exception. They always look fit and well groomed, even as I try to extricate them from the attic.

But that is beside the point, let me not get distracted. The sight of the rabbit’s close call further confirmed my thoughts, thoughts of the seriousness of the natural world. I see a dog wag its tail and smile, a cat purrs in my lap and I anthropomorphize them. But I think if set free without a loving human to feed them, they would quickly turn on me to satisfy their hunger.

The natural world is an unforgiving place. We have done a marvelous job of isolating ourselves from it, but occasionally I seek it out. I have traveled to unruly lands: Israel moments before the Yom Kippur War, Northern Ireland in the first year of the Troubles and Greece during the junta. Closer to home I have hiked in the wilderness home of the grizzly and summited a few 12,000 foot peaks and even closer, I have spent many days on the blue waters of the Great Lakes.

Of all the time spent on the Great Lakes, many more hours have been consumed contemplating the weather. I know that if I make a mistake I am in for an unpleasant experience, if not a dangerous one. I hope for an uneventful passage. More than hope, I plan for it, and contrary to popular opinion I often remember an uneventful voyage and forget a bad one.

The natural world is not divorced from the middle of the city. How many life and death struggles take place each evening. Late one afternoon as I walked to the now destroyed Michael Reese Hospital parking structure I heard the shrill cries of a mother squirrel and her baby. The dense hedges that surrounded the parking garage supported a remarkable diversity of creatures and it was there that I witnessed the drama.

I went searching for the commotion and saw a large crow, several times the size of the mother squirrel, raiding the nest with a yelping baby squirrel between its beaks. I startled the crow causing it to drop the baby. Mother squirrel quickly grabbed her baby by the fur and fled back to the nest. The crow did not hesitate to bound up and kidnap the baby once again. The mother’s unrestrained aggression towards the crow was futile, it barely noticed her.

I decided that as unseemly as this spectacle was, I best not get involved. Turning away I dare not look back. This was nature playing out its destiny. It was on a smaller scale than on the plains of Africa or the northern reaches of the Americas where lions and wolves cull the herds of antelope and caribou, but it was just as sobering.

This event came back to me as I watched the fox and the rabbit’s paths cross. For all our preconceived notions while sitting in the comfortable cocoon of modernity, the natural world is unrelenting. I have no illusions that the lake is concerned with my well being. If I get roughed up on the way to the next port I am grateful to reach safe harbor. Just as I am sure that Mr. Rabbit was, in some rabbit way, happy to have escaped the notice of Mr. Fox . . . for this time at least.