Snowshoe hare remains can be found on pretty much any long walk, a constant reminder that life can be over in an instant. A bear tried to bite a girls head off in Anchorage – she survived the attack. She was in a bicycle race in the middle of the night (still while light out) in the woods near a well known grizzly feeding ground during a salmon run. While this goes to explain some of why she was mauled, it doesn’t change the fact that up here you can be in the unusual position of being prey to a very large predator.
The other day while I as out walking, a red fox missing one of its paws came limping towards me down the other side of the road. I kept walking, and it kept walking, and we passed each other – two animals out about our business.
On my way somewhere else I saw a baby gull, an awkward looking grey fluffy thing. Its mother is a gull with one leg that just swings free, broken and useless – I’ve seen it around before. As I had to pass the baby to continue on my way, the mother swooped low over me screeching. It was a freaky sight, the dead leg swinging as it came close to my head again and again. But you know, I thought – good for you! Maimed you may be, but you have offspring, so you are a successful animal. Your line will live on!
These animals remind me of some of the tourists of Denali - elderly, so many with walking problems. This is what it means to live and have a long successful life. The bumps and toils of your life catch up with you and you soldier on, successful and scarred, and sometimes gasping for breath. But with stories, and experience, and maybe children to show for it.
How do we make it so far, made so delicately as we are out of such un-lasting materials?
No comments:
Post a Comment