Ephemera

I found a new-to-me set of tracks in the desert.

Perplexing, because the only possible match I can come up with is raccoon, but the stride span seems too far apart. So, possibly either the biggest raccoon ever or not a raccoon at all. If anyone can identify these tracks accurately, let me know. Their maker moved off into the brush, and though I followed them as far as I could, I can offer no further clues. All these lovely little mysteries.

The tracks were obliterated the next day by some fierce wind that started puffing mid-morning and didn’t simmer down until late evening. The wind left its own tracks.

The next day a new set of tracks, sniffed out by Buddy the big-hearted black lab. 

The black bear sauntered right up the road and then followed the trail I’ve been walking every day. The next day the bear tracks on the road had been obliterated by vehicle tracks. 

It all puts me in mind of a kind of art I like: ephemera. Andy Goldsworthy is one such artist, creating art out of natural materials like icicles, stones, and leaves, doing so at specific sites for specific reasons, and then letting time have its say. He's a photographer and sculptor and has some traditional work, but for me, Goldsworthy's ephemeral art is the most profound: watching him create is the real prize; the finished work is but a moment, and then it starts to change, fade, and disappear, as if never there at all. What lasts but a little longer is the enjoyment of the experience, seeing him so completely absorbed in the process, being transfixed by the barely perceptible and yet nevertheless changing and fading, and finally appreciating the deeper resonance: there are no fixtures in nature. 

Nature is ephemeral. I enjoy this sunset, here but a few moments. Tomorrow’s sunset will be completely different, and I will be different. In the deep reading I’m doing on Emerson’s Essays, I think my favorite essay so far has been “Circles.” Emerson cautions against stopping anywhere too long when it comes to “understanding”: culture, he says, is just a momentary instance in a long train; ideas can hem you in. “Upheave thy creed!” And as if speaking directly to me, he writes, “We grizzle every day. I see no need of it. … This old age ought not to creep on a human mind. In nature every moment is new; the past is always swallowed and forgotten; the coming only is sacred. Nothing is secure but life, transition, the energizing spirit.”  

Grow young, not grizzled. Life is an infinite series of surprises. Don’t get stuck in the little pen you just finished. Break out of habitual thinking and seeing. Do something without knowing how or why. 

Bear, raccoon, wind, sun, me, ephemera all, just passing through. Momentary works of art.