{"id":4823,"date":"2019-10-14T06:44:08","date_gmt":"2019-10-14T04:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=4823"},"modified":"2020-03-16T08:13:51","modified_gmt":"2020-03-16T07:13:51","slug":"natural-habitat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=4823","title":{"rendered":"Natural Habitat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s an unusually sunny and warm afternoon in October. The\nleaves are changing and are in that perfect zone of yellow and light brown. The\nsunlight comes through them, making the ground almost golden. I am watching the\nworld go by my window. Though there are three parks with a five minutes\u2019 walk\nfrom my flat, I have decided to eschew nature today. Both of my living room\nwindows are cracked open. A ladybug is walking on the tip of one of them\u2026both\nof them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sigh. Nature is wonderful. I go to my kitchen for a\nsandwich. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am rereading Bill Bryson\u2019s A Walk in the Woods<\/em>, a\nbook that I have consistently recommended since reading it for the first time\nin 2004. The book is about Bryson\u2019s 1996 hike of the Appalachian Trail, though,\nas some readers will immediately point out, not all of it. These are the same\npeople who tell you that pineapple belongs on pizza. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reading A Walk in the Woods<\/em> has had the same effect\non me as it did the first time I read it. Namely, it makes me want to up and\nwalk somewhere through nature. I have done my days in nature. A camping and\nfishing trip in the west. A yearly canoeing trip in southern Bohemia. Countless\ndays fishing as a kid. A Boy Scout camping trip. I can, as Bryson so desires,\nlook into a set of mountains and woods, and say with a far-ff stare, \u201cI have\nshit in the woods.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Yet nature is admittedly not in my nature. Once I get beyond\nthe superficial joys of nature, I am faced with the very true reality that I spend\nmost of my time in nature wondering when I can be out of nature. I know it\u2019s\nnot the Zen and back to nature mentality that we\u2019re supposed to wear around our\nheads like a halo, but it\u2019s the truth. Canoeing is fine, but have you ever\nconsidered how great not canoeing is? Brilliant. Better yet, having been canoeing?\nBrilliant and with the extra benefit of being able to say that you\u2019ve been\ncanoeing. The first memory I have of my Boy Scout trip is the night my friend Jason\nand I had to share our tent with a half dozen eastern wolf spiders trying to\nget out of the rain. And kill us. And, yeah, I\u2019ve shit in the woods, but have\nyou tried shitting in a bathroom in your own house? World\u2019s better. And the\nreading material is so much more enjoyable when you\u2019re not using its pages to\nclean up your butt after you forgot TP hypothetically. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So today, instead of being in<\/em> nature, I have decided\nto enjoy it from my window while I drink coffee, eat salted meats and cheeses between\nbread, and read about<\/em> nature.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I get back to the living room, I sit at my desk and\nreview some notes. I nibble my sandwich and listen halfheartedly to the sitcom playing\nin the background. Someone walks by outside, crunching the leaves beneath their\nfeet, a quintessentially autumnal sound. I pull off my glasses and look up to the\nwindow in a mimic of appreciation and reflection. It\u2019s then that I note that\nthe two ladybugs there earlier have invited some friends. There are now six or\nseven of them and some more outside on the wall. I give a laugh. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Correction: I give a nervous laugh. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I take out my broom and open the windows wide, I gently push\nthe ladybugs out into the day. \u201cOk guys, back to nature.\u201d Their wings bristle\nand one of them buzzes at me aggressively. The other one plays dead and I gather\nhim up on a piece of paper and place him on the outside sill. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are still a couple of ladybugs still hanging out, but I\ncan deal with one or two. I look through the window at the seven or eight standing\non the outside sill. \u201cWhat are you guys doing around here?\u201d I ask. Nobody\nanswers. The cat is standing on the sill and watching them. She\u2019s smacking her\ntail, but it\u2019s all for show. She licks her lips nervously. I walk around the\nflat and look through the other windows and note one or two ladybugs on the\nsills, there\u2019s maybe one in the kitchen. I let him be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I get back to the living room they\u2019ve made another push\nand several ladybugs now meander slowly along my ceiling and on the windows. On\nthe inside<\/em> of the windows. I close the computer and open the windows. I have\nmy broom. \u201cCome on, guys. Get out of here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ladybugs fly through the window as I tap them with the\nbroom. A bee flies perilously close to my open window, but thank heavens he zooms\noff. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre you cold?\u201d I ask the cat. I rub my shoulders. \u201cBrrr, I\u2019m\ncold.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am not cold. I shut the windows but the ladybugs still\nfind a way in. They come in numbers now. They stand. They amble along the\nwindows. They mock.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not the first time I\u2019ve been invaded by airborne nature.\nA hornet tried to get at me two summers ago, literally tearing at the screen\nthat separated us as angrily as if I\u2019d drawn dirty pictures of his sister. This\nlast summer I was taunted by a wasp named Chauncey, and last spring two, yes two,\nbirds flew into the room I was inhabiting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat do you bastards want from me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They do not answer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end I decide that they want me to go out. So I go\noutside. I walk around the park and eventually allow nature to take over and\nhead to a local pub. I sit outside, read my Bryson. He\u2019s on about leaving wildlife\nalone in their element, the perfection of a bear in the woods, an owl in a tree\nknot. It\u2019s here, in my natural element of a garden pub, that I am left alone by\nall other creatures, big, small, and bipedal. I order another beer and note\nthat the bees bother the others and a ladybug walks on the table near me,\ncareful to keep its distance. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s an unusually sunny and warm afternoon in October. The leaves are changing and are in that perfect zone of yellow and light brown. The sunlight comes through them, making the ground almost golden. I am watching the world go by my window. Though there are three parks with a five minutes\u2019 walk from my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4824,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/ladybug.jpg?fit=700%2C465&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-1fN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4823"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4825,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4823\/revisions\/4825"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}