Essays

Moseying: Outdoor Recreation Activities

Nightwalking: Strangeness in the night
October 13, 2004

At four in the morning I was sleepless. I arose, drank some cola and looked at a book. Restlessness soon carried me outside to walk around the loop driveway in the heart of the planted area of the Gone Native Arboretum. Around me, tall Afgan pines turned it into a walk in a mountain forest.

The chilly air raised goosepimples, but I did not return to the house for long sleeves and long pants instead of my summertime T-shirt and khaki shorts. After looping around and around for a quarter mile, I stopped for a breather.

The stars and pines above transported me to camping experiences on trips to the sky islands of the southwestern United States. The constellation Orion was to the east, “four fists above the horizon.” A country kid learns to tell time by stacking upright fists. Each fist of sun or star movement is an hour.

“Step outside of the worries and stresses that are preventing sleep. Be here, in this very moment, enjoy it, drink it in, celebrate it,” I told myself. In answer, the black kitten Kotchie joined me, rubbing against my legs, and squeaking a quiet meow. I picked him up and held him close to my chest for warmth. The longhaired cat Choza (18 years old) joined us, and sat on my feet. Cats come when you need them!

I continued to gaze at the stars. A half-mile away, a dog ferociously barked. I could also hear the faint hum of traffic on the Interstate 2 miles away. Nobody was driving in my exurban neighborhood, where farmland and old pastureland predominates.

Kotchie suddenly stopped purring and squirmed to be set down. He trotted into the darkest shadows behind me, into the trees in the center of the loop. Chinese pistache, eastern red cedar, vitex, soapberry, and mesquite fill this “island.”

I thought of my father. In the last year of his life, he also stayed awake in the wee hours, restlessness leading him to circle about on his 3-wheel cart. He also would circle the island, going around and around for hours and hours. I was hit by a pang of loss and sadness. Was he kept awake by worry about how my mother and I would fare after his passing? He knew that at age 86 he did not have long.

A mockingbird tittered in the trees – Kotchie must have heard it fluff its feathers and gone into the island grove to investigate. I fussed at the cat – “leave him alone – you can’t see well enough to catch him.” His youthful hopefulness made me think of my grandson. One night during his long visit this summer, he had awoken and come to Deborah and I at this time of night.

”I heard a rattlesnake under the window.” Rather than to try to deny his fears, we let him crawl into our bed and snuggle between us. The sounds of the night can be scary for anyone. A child’s fear is much like an adult’s worries –both are ways to process the emotions of our day to day lives. The night is when imagination remakes the world. In the morning, when the world outside was visible again, we talked to him.

“We never have seen a rattler here, but one could have been here, it is true. And a snake can not come through a screen window. The doors were all closed. You were safe, really and truly. And it could have been a dream rattlesnake, too.” I took him outside and with a broom handle poked through the turk’s cap and autumn sage very slowly and carefully. “If one was there earlier, he has gone now.” I poked the flower bed on the other side of the entry sidewalk too, carefully lifting the arching branches of lantana and eupatorium wrightii. “Nope, not anything here either. This evening, if you wish, we will check again.”

I returned to my walk, circling again, and kept going around and around for a full half mile or more. The cats stayed put – Kotchie perched on my little truck, and Choza on a bench on the porch. I stopped, finally, to sit with her. I had not been motionless long when I began itching. “Blankety-blank mosquitoes. They have begun their early morning patrols.” Mosquitoes fly easiest when humidity is the highest. I headed for the lath house where cans of insect spray are stored. I lit the chili pepper lights hanging from the rafters and grabbed the can from the counter near the grill.

“Should I worry about West Nile Virus? I don’t want to be subject to fear. But…someone local just died recently…” I sprayed myself thoroughly, hand smearing the stinky goo on my neck and forehead. As the can hissed, I heard the lath ceiling rattle. An animal was walking on top. I clicked on a drop light hanging above the grill and was rewarded by eye reflection. The glowing eyes were unblinking. A weird moaning began. My skin quivered as the hair on my arms stood on end. “Don’t be subject to fear!” I lectured myself to take a deep breath.

The glowing eyes traveled the length of one section of the roof. Choza and Kotchie were at my feet, and the other cat was inside. “It is just the fox,” I told myself. And so it was. I could see his shape as he leapt to the fruiting mulberry that overhangs the deck. He had probably just settled in for his morning nap. This one is not as calm and fearless as his father who allowed us to walk underneath him. Every time I find this one on the lath house roof, he always gets down. “I am sorry I scared you – but you did not have to make that weird moan,” I fussed.

On the county road, I heard the newspaper carrier, stopping and going in front of each house. The routine morning had just begun. I returned to the house for my keys to drive and fetch the paper, and then to return to start the morning coffee. It was 5.30 a.m. and dagnab it, now I was yawning and sleepy again.