Posted: Tuesday, May 31, 2016 8:03:48 PM
It can be hard to imagine that my childhood was a happy one despite not knowing who my parents were. My aunt, who would come visit me and take me out would teach me their names. I would recite their names back to her in monotone. She would make me sit away from her students and write out the alphabet in silence during her classroom sessions. My grandparents didn’t treat me like a child even though I was five years old. They were my guardians and despite what my aunt said I believed they were my real parents.
I grew up in a chosa with them in a mountainous area filled with vegetation. There was always something to discover and my grandparents let me explore it without expectations. I would get lost for hours in the surrounding forest thinking about what life was, a question I still haven’t found the answer to. I wasn’t taught to fear questions or their possible answers. I was taught to just accept them as they came.
One of earliest memories was finding strange looking flower and giving it to grandmother to smell. She smiled when I showed it to her asking me, “Would you like to learn the proper way to smell a flower?” I was puzzled that there was a proper way to do something.
She gently held the flower at the stem and with her other hand spread her fingers over the petals. She put her nose close to her fingers and inhaled slowly.
She handed it back to me, “Why don’t you try it?” When I did the scent was light and filtered. She explained that the bugs rely on flowers for food and like to roam the petals we like to smell.
“If you aren’t careful and inhale too closely you could suck them into your nostrils and take them away from their home.” Suddenly it made sense. We were all just trying to make our way in the world. Being considerate to even the smallest creatures was the proper way to do things. I wanted to understand the world around me. My grandmother said that she wouldn’t have all the answers but if I watched and listened intently enough the answer would come.
I spent time watching nature and it became alive. It was awake while I dozed off to cicadas and owls calling to family, and it woke me in the morning to birds and crickets singing by the stream. I watched the darkness become mornings, helped the ants find food, I watched the frogs shed their skin and eat it for nutrients, I heard the wolf calling for a friend who drifted too far, and the bats frantically beating their wings because they were frightened.
What connects us to the world is not our presence within it but our desire to want to understand it. I watched nature and it showed me life and it taught me death.