Weather and worry

I threw my attention at this beautiful cluster yesterday morning, the world silent except for the wind. Is it weird that sitting there in the snow with this little flora friend warmed my spirit and cheered me?

 In the last episode, tracks presented a mystery and Dan provided the answer: a coatimundi! Indeed, the tracks and stride span matched, but coatimundis are a rarity in these parts. I am still very surprised by its presence, downright astonished really. A coatimundi on walkabout. 

Another surprise yesterday morning: waking to snowfall, about three inches, and the landscape shrouded in thick fog. Surprised because I’m not a weather-checker, meaning I have no interest or regard for forecasted weather. This is different from my mother’s approach of catching the news and weather report three times a day, adjusting plans (even if she had no plans to leave the house, now the plan is to sit inside and watch the weather), and even worrying about weather forecasted seven to ten days away.

In his essay “Circles,” Emerson tells a little story of Geoffrey and Aaron: 

“Geoffrey draws on his boots to go through the woods, that his feet may be safer from the bite of snakes; Aaron never thinks of such a peril. In many years neither is harmed by such an accident. Yet it seems to me that with every precaution you take against such an evil you put yourself into the power of the evil.”

Might it have gone otherwise for Aaron or Geoffrey? Sure. I have this image of dying from lightning strike or mountain lion attack and my mother saying to gathered mourners (if any show up), “I told him to watch the weather. I told him hiking wasn’t safe” or that she’ll inscribe my tombstone, “I told him so.” But if I give in to the endless worries and precautions she advocates, I feel I’ve poorly aimed my attention, that I'm aiming at the wrong targets. To expend attention on such matters is to put myself “into the power of the evil” feared or anticipated, wasting my attention.

Although I frequently lie and say "yes" when she asks if I’ve “checked the weather” before heading out backpacking (and this seems to do nothing to assuage the worry, so maybe she knows I'm lying), I do take weather-watching seriously in my own way: watching the sky, noticing shifts in how the air feels and smells, and understanding something of the conditions and attendant dangers themselves, whether slot canyons and flash floods or what makes for excellent avalanche potential. Somehow I'm right often enough. When I'm wrong, the adventure begins (something merely type-2 on the suffering scale, hopefully). I’ve learned through experience and close calls, when my idiocy or ignorance wasn’t punished with something like dismemberment or death. Could it have gone the other way? Sure. I accept the attendant risks. I might make a mistake I can’t recover from. My prudence and knowledge might fail me. The big ursine paw of the universe might swipe me into yesterday. 

So it goes. Worth not worrying about. But I worry about my mother so I have taken one precaution: I’ve specified in my last will and testament that there’ll be no tombstone for me, “I told him so” no more than words the wind carries away with all the other forecasts.