I had one of those nights again last night. We were awakened by our goose yelling for us to come help him because he was under attack. The two juvenile raccoons that live in our woods were out at 3 a.m. looking for an easy meal.
These are the bravest (or dumbest) raccoons I’ve ever met. Earlier in the evening they had come to the sliding glass door, stood on their hind legs, placed their little hands on the window and pressed their noses against the glass. They stood there staring at me, while I watched T.V., as if to say, “Hey, lady, did you know the cat’s food dish is empty?” In an attempt to keep them away from the house, I opened the door and yelled at them to go home. They took a few steps back, but then sat down, hands clasped, looking at me from behind their masks perplexed, as if I hadn’t understood their request. After repeating this scenario several times, they finally left.
Curled up in bed, the window opened, Chester, our goose, knows he can yell for us and we’ll come running. In fact he yells so often, my husband has begun to call him our 25 pound rooster. Chester hollers when the sun comes up, when the city bus goes by and when the trucker that still uses his jake-brakes comes down the hill past our house. But tonight’s squawk held a tone of serious urgency. When my husband turned the big spot light on the pen, we could see Chester standing in the middle of his cage staring at us as if to say, “Hurry UP!” Beside the enclosure were two sets of eyes staring back at us, like two kids caught with their hands in the cookie jar. My husband yelled at them to go home, but they just stood there blinking their eyes in the light. He eventually had to walk out there with a stick and bang on the pen to convince them to retreat into the woods. We went back to sleep until 5 a.m. when Chester announced the city bus driving by the house.
The morning light, as it often does, beckoned us to get up and share the day. We pulled on our warm sweats, coffee cups in hand and walked the trail to the creek looking for our juvenile delinquents. We knew it was a long shot, but we were hoping to find their home and maybe encourage them to move farther into the woods or down stream. Luckless in our search, we started back up the trail towards home watching the dog run ahead of us with her nose in the air signaling something was near.
If a person glanced quickly, it would appear as if the woods were empty today, but knowing what we knew from the night’s escapades, we stopped and just stood there listening and observing. We became the spectators rather than the hunters; and we were rewarded for our efforts. Way up high, about 50 feet up in the fork of the old cedar tree, was a masked bandit silently watching us. When he saw us see him, he ducked down lower but never took his eyes off of us. His brother/sister/mate (?) wasn’t as brave and headed up the side of the tree putting another forty feet between us and it.
I had to smile as I realized their ‘Operation look-out’ was at such a place and height in the tree that they could see the garden, our back porch and the goose pen. That means they knew exactly when I fed the goose, the cat, and filled the squirrel and bird feeders! Our delinquents were actually quite clever! They had learned the rewards of strategic stillness.
In our weak attempts in the past to aggressively track them down, chasing them nightly through the woods, we were rewarded only when we had given up and stood silently. In fact, as if the forest needed to reinforce the lesson we were learning about stillness, while we stood there quietly, a mother doe and yearling appeared on the trail where we had just been walking. The doe, already aware of us and keeping a safe distance while she ushered her young one towards the thicket, silently let us know that if we did not move quickly she would allow us the privilege of this morning’s meeting. The yearling, on the other hand, was more curious than cautious and wandered closer towards us until mom cut him off and with a flick of her tail insisting he follow her.
Our dog stood reluctantly silent beside us watched by two masked bandits, a curious fawn and a cautious mom. The new rabbits sat on the edge of the trail watching to see how soon they would have to dart into the tall grass and a beautiful song wafted down from a fir tree on the other side of the trail. What a magical morning, like a Discovery channel episode, but better—because we stood amid the magic.
It’s going to be tough to fill the birdfeeder without being reminded that I’m being observed. Everyday when I walk the trail through the woods, I’ve felt as if I was being watched, and today, I know my instincts were right. I often walk to work off the tension that gets wound up in me during the day, to somewhat synthetically produce an inner calm. But today the lesson the woods have taught me is that I must stop chasing stillness. And that if I expect to be rewarded, I must simply be still. I can only imagine how many times the birds, the rabbits, the doe and the bandits have watched me power-walk along the trail, and shake their heads wondering how long it will take me to ‘get it’.
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Pamala Vincent is a career teacher and was honored as Teacher of the Year 2004- 2007 for Alternative Education in Oregon. She has written several books including, “Gate Keepers at Home,” a woman’s devotional. Pam’s contributions are featured in “Ripples of Joy,” “Birds and Blooms Best of 2005,” “Nature Camp,” and Maxine Marsolini’s “Rebuilding Families.” She has recently been published in the Christian Communicator, the Storyteller, and the International Christian Writer. She can be contacted at www.trecacademy.com