Desert Gnats
Reading time: 3 minutes
Themes: Growth, introspection
Sometimes I feel as if I’m an eternal optimist, but I do have my limits. I found them extraordinarily quickly, only moments after stepping out of my car at an impromptu campsite outside Green River, Utah. Profanities flew from my mouth as I violently smacked another near-microscopic pest destined to enter my ear canal. “If this is how the entire trip will be, we’re going to have problems,” I uttered into the vibrantly painted tangerine sky. How quickly I judged my current, fleeting circumstances as somehow eternal - comical, in hindsight. That evening, though, I found myself engulfed in one of my highest-ranking displays of natural beauty - a sunset - yet I chose to focus my energy on the distractions. Animals, namely bugs, have a way of summoning my attention away from the enjoyment of nature into a sudden insecticidal fit. It’s not only flying micro-demons that have proven to be a bold distraction, though.
As of late, I’ve become somewhat of a (self-proclaimed) bird enthusiast. Each morning, for the most part, I begin my day with a several-mile stroll through the outskirts of the Rocky Mountain Arsenal directly behind my neighborhood. Embarrassingly, it took me months of walking the same route each day to notice the enormous amount of birds I cross paths with and, subsequently, to become interested in identifying each type. One of the primary species of bird that inspired me to begin my identification quest was the unbelievably obnoxious, Killdeer. Comically, their very name was given to them by a collection of eighteenth-century naturalists, who also dubbed them Chattering Plover and the Noisy Plover; I can only guess that they shared in my disdain. Anyone desiring a quiet morning walk to pray, observe, or otherwise enjoy nature in peace should avoid these ground-nesting tyrants.
The reflective part of my brain lacks an off-switch, and, as a result, my fellow earthly occupants (insect and bird alike) have taught me quite a bit about myself. After a profoundly refreshing night of sleep in the desert, I awoke and ventured shirtless into the distance, coffee in hand, searching for an area where I could be by myself - truly by myself. My brain quickly set its sights on the tallest object in the area: a scree-covered towered, severely eroded, and laden with dirt bike tracks. The more steps I took up the side of the butte, the nearer I moved toward my goal. As I approached the bug-free summit, I felt like I had emerged victorious from the battle - for now. I enjoyed my coffee in the stillness of the early morning sun and nothing else. My mind was quiet, and my heart was content. It turned out that at that moment, as in all others, the indignations that I feared would last forever dissolved before my eyes. Optimism restored - for now.
