Thoughts on Entomology

Dated: August 16th.

Beaver Lake Float Tubing.

I think sometimes I could have studied insects in another life. Fishing earlier today was really just an excuse to watch the flurry of insect life around me.

Small butterflies, brown with yellow spots on their wings, horseflies, house flies, damsel flies, dragonflies, bumblebees, wasps, red ants, black ants, flying ants, rock spiders, water bugs....

There are more insects in one square mile of earth than there are people on the entire planet!
And they're all so fascinating.

I really do love the way they fly, crawl, scoot and skim the surface of the water.

I wish I could remember all of the insect facts Annie Dillard wrote about in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, but there were just too many.

I think I'll be buying an entomologist's field guide from Powell's soon, though. It makes me wish I had worked more hours at the Insect Zoo at OZ a few summers ago. I would have learned so much!

I felt like Annie Dillard today. Spending time in the wilderness, observing fish, insects, wildlife, all of nature at its finest. On the float tubes, brilliant neon blue damselflies kept landing on my hands... They were so fascinating.

The lacy patterns on their wings looked like minuscule floorplans of a very intricate, multilevel building. Their eyes reflected all the blue hues of their bodies. Brave, innocent, trusting.

They stared at me just as I stared at them.

I inched my fingernail close to their heads. Their feelers immediately made me retreat. Their scurrying amused me. Fearless, they landed several times on Becca's relaxed chin.

Lovely creatures! I want to learn so much more about them.

The sky is very blue here. The water is very fresh.... The mountain is beautiful, and yet so threatening. I don't feel 100% at ease in the mountains. Sometimes, I feel very calm, but not entirely at peace.

There's so much to be wary of. I am aware of a lot of pain here.

Ghosts towns screaming of mining tragedies, sickness, starvation and death dot all across the outline of the horizon. You cannot conquer mountains.

Nature will win, and that's why they unnerve me.

I feel relaxed, but suddenly completely subject to the will of the mountain.

But the lakes are beautiful, the fish are delicious and plentiful, the air is crystal, and I do enjoy the purity of a mostly untouched mountain.