Terra Cognita

Charles Darwin, William Bartram, W.S. Merwin, and of course, Mary Oliver.

Who do you have on your person today?

I carry a backpack with me everywhere. Or a large purse. Something that can carry for me words I might need at any point in the day, and of course my own words, my journals. One week it might be a field guide for flowers, the next, a book on linguistics or punnery. I've been reading a lot of Mary Oliver and wanted to start supplementing her writings with others'. What do all the above writers have in common? Journeys by foot, discoveries, awful bug bites (I'm assuming), and endurance for the elements. Of the four of them, I know that three of them had ties in my lovely home state of Pennsylvania. Penn's Woods.

Bartram, a meandering naturalist, was born in Philadelphia. In the 1700s, he embarked on a southbound journey to Georgia, discovering flora and fauna along the way. His travels had him bushwhacking through briar and ivy, puncturing and poisoning him throughout his survey. I wish to have lived in those times where there was terra incognita to survey and explore (although it was more a manly pursuit back then). I remember being in Virginia with my friend Maddie as we were typical tourists at the Natural Bridge. We scanned the limestone wall, searching for George Washington's initials (for he had surveyed that land). Maddie and I then ventured to various caverns throughout Virginia. I had been in some caverns here in Pennsylvania, but they didn't compare to the caverns we toured in Virginia. I'll admit that it was odd and a little off-putting to me that the entrances to the caverns were not wild, crude openings in the ground that one simply walked into. How symbolic it is that we, the tourists, had to enter a man-made gift shop in order to enter the cavern, be it by a grand stair case or an elevator. And it wasn't scientists and old, crotchety naturalists who gave us the tours, but knowledgable high school/college students (this is not a complaint; just an observation). I remember a tour guide had mentioned that one of the caverns was discovered when a random man discovered a simple hole in the ground. To stand there amongst all those stalagmites and stalactites initiated in my mind the enormity of time, and how over time, water shapes such structures in complete and utter darkness.

W.S. Merwin--a poet now living in Haiku, Hawaii (YES, A POET LIVING IN HAIKU, HAWAII) spent some of his formative years living in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where his love for the natural world bloomed amongst the Poconos. His passion for deep ecology resonated in his various writings. I have yet to explore the Poconos but hope to do so this year at some point. The extent of hiking I've done in eastern Pennsylvania is up Mt. Tammany in the Delaware Water Gap. It was during a solo road-trip in 2016. A trip I will never forget, having met some amazing strangers (Andrew, Michael) and visited old friends (Miranda, another Michael). But for the most part, I was by myself, climbing up some of the tallest mountains in New England. Mt. Tammany was my last hike before heading home. I hiked up her just in time to watch the sun rise from her summit.

We have all heard of Charles Darwin and I'll admit, I do not know too much about him but want to learn. I'm hoping to learn about his enterprise on the Beagle and the various studies he conducted in the Galapagos and elsewhere. I know he was a sad man, very prone to melancholia, and for many understandable reasons. Thinking about him reminds me of a dream I had the other evening. I was walking around a residential neighborhood and came across exotic (fictional, dream) birds that I thought I'd only see in books or documentaries. More beautiful than any Bird of Paradise. They were my birds of paradise. I was so sad when I awakened. I had discovered something gorgeous that I couldn't quite share with the world because it didn't actually happen.

This is something I have only told a few people: all my life I have been dreaming of places that don't quite exist, but I am always revisiting them. Years ago, I thought about making my own map of these places because in my dreams, they all connected to one another. But they weren't just surfaces. Not just pavement and pine needle, but also underbellies, sewers, and even closets. I have a haunted house in my dreams. And there are nooks and crannies I must enter in the house in order to get to its seemingly evil, haunted parts. I visit this house very often in dreams.

I am an explorer at heart. Yet, I have not gone where no one else has. Growing up, I found solace in the backs of closets, behind the coats. I explored abandoned factories, old grave yards. But I was no William Bartram or Charles Darwin. Never will be.

Mary Oliver--she was the queen of sauntering. The ponds, the shores, the forests, they were not discovered by her but she managed to somehow re-discover them. And in these days of terra cognita, it is just as admirable to share the nuances and offerings of the earth that is trodden and not so trodden.

Photo permission by Benjamin Harrison McNitt