The Love of Nature: A Brief Romance

As Frank awoke on that sunny July day he fuzzily remembered the night before, if it was indeed the night before and not rather a place out of time, on the cabin porch with Maude and Pete and Jeanne, listening to the life of the lake and the earth and the sky. Frank then realized this was a highly unreliable memory considering the four of them had actually spent the evening indoors playing poker and drinking beer. And Maude and Pete and Jeanne weren't in the memory after all; some other figures were: cloudy inchoate figures who never spoke.

The cabin was silent. Frank climbed out of bed and padded into the main space. No signs of life. He went out onto the porch and saw only his own shoes. He looked out the screen door and saw the car, so they couldn't have gone far, probably. Also the towels were still on the line‑barely‑so they hadn't gone swimming. They'd be back soon.

He went down to the lake to sit on Big Rock to wait and think about that dream or whatever it had been. "We're talking to you." He could hear a voice clearly saying that. Who had said it? One of the cloudy inchoate figures, maybe both, maybe something else somewhere? There's not much sense in parsing dreams. Freud figured you always find the significance elsewhere, in the dream-work or in the ... day's residues.

"Hey!" called Maude from behind and Frank turned to look. She was wearing a short taupe skirt and a white t-shirt and her glasses. Pete and Jeanne were in matching duds, namely cut-off jeans and blue shirts possibly not intentionally.

Frank said, "I was starting to wonder."

Maude jumped and kissed him. "Mwah!"

"Are you hungry? I'm hungry."

Pete said, "I think we're all hungry, and I think it's my turn." He went back up to the cabin and inside.

"Where have you been?"

Jeanne sat down on the other side of Big Rock, too close. She said, "Do you know they have, like, a mansion for rent on this property?"

Frank looked to his right, up the hill past the cabin. "The one back there?"

"Yeah, it's back that-away."

"Didn't know it was rentable."

"Well. It's rentable, and it's rentable tonight."

Frank stood up and casually wiped rock-dirt off his butt. They were old friends. He walked up the path to the cabin, saying, "Interesting that it's rentable." The morning rippling seemed like the only sound in the world. The dirt under his feet was warmed with the sun. He stopped. "I love this cabin."

Maude said, "It's nice. Small."

He looked at the shape of its roof, and at the blue sky over it. "It was really nice waking up here. I felt so warm." After a moment he added, "I was fine you all weren't around." He went into the cabin.

Maude looked at Jeanne and said, "If only it weren't so boring," and laughed.

"Not true, not true. It's a change. It's quiet. Back home we don't see many trees or ... lakes."

"Okay, okay. It's nice. Do you think we can pull this off?"

"I don't see why not."

In the cabin, Peter was hustling and rustling. A mess of toast was in the enamelled oven alongside a half-pound of bacon; the coffee was ready, with chipped cups ready too, and the eight eggs fought for supremacy of a shouting contest in the frying pan. He said to Frank, "It's got a huge fireplace and a huge kitchen."

"Oh does it." He pushed himself into one of the benches that made up the booth-like eating alcove. The table was made of rough boards varnished to a stickiness that would not be a delight to the palate and the benches were like White Star Line steamer trunks shoved against a berth wall. "It's much further from the water though isn't it?"

"I suppose there's a trade-off. You can see the water from the living room. Big floor to ceiling windows. So long as you're standing."

"That does not sound nice."

"It's a trade-off."

"Did you bring back a newspaper from your journeys?"

"Box was empty."

The screen door creaked as Maude and Jeanne came in to sit themselves down at the table. Maude grabbed Frank's arm and squealed, "You have to see it! It's available tonight! One night only!"

Frank nodded to indicate he understood the cottage was available for one night only. "We've already got a place; here; for another five nights."

She pouted. "It's so nice. Will it kill you to just take a look at it?"

"I saw it from the outside. You can see it from behind here," as he pointed with his thumb backwards. Does anyone remember anyone saying, 'We're talking to you,' last night?"

No-one said anything, indicating succinctly that no-one could aver to having heard those words, in that order, the previous night.

Frank continued, "Strange. I can hear it in my head but I can't figure out anything about who said it."

"Maybe you dreamed it," said Jeanne.

"Maybe I did, maybe."

They ate while wind rustled the birch and maple leaves, while spiders crawled thick on the igneous rock through spruce needles, and while at the water's edge insects devoured other insects and were in turn devoured by the surface fish. There was conversation to which Frank listened but little: mostly about the nostalgic past, about years ago when Frank had moved in hopelessly with Peter and Jeanne into their house in which three other people were already living, in a kind of a hippy-dippy shared home, and about the people who had passed through the house, young people in their Toronto twenties, (and about Frank meeting Maude in a Laundromat and so on and so forth), and about those wild years with their ambulances and their police (but not about how they'd managed to get their stuff together such that they could afford, through the nature of development and economy, to go up to a cabin some fifteen years later) and the excitement of all that once was, fifteen years ago, and would be no more; as they talked, the fish out on the lake consumed all of Frank's attention, and that which was behind the fish consumed all of his attention too.

He said, "What?"

Maude said, "We've got a plan. It's an extra cost, but it would be so worth it."

"Is this about next year, maybe getting that cottage next year?" saying it like he'd just then teleported into another television channel.

"We're talking about tonight. Going there tonight. For fun! To see what it's like."

"You looked inside, didn't you?"

"Mr. Pardge let us take a look."

"So you know what it's like. What else is there to know?"

Maude cried, "C'mon, Frank! Let's rent the place for tonight, to have a little variety!"

Frank shook his head saying, "But we already have this place, and our places in Toronto, so if we get another place we're paying rent on three places." (He had apparently been cognizant of the drift of the argument.) "That's crazy. This cabin here is so wonderful."

Jeanne started quietly clearing the plates off the table.

Maude said, "I know it's an extravagance. But why not? I don't want to wait a year, oh honey, come on, it'll be nice. A big fireplace."

Something in Frank came up with something of a solution. He said, "I can't be a part of it. It makes no sense to me. We've got a place, here, and so why?"

Peter very seriously said, "The beds are better."

"I don't want a better bed. I want the one I've been in. It's worked out. Why don't you guys go stay there without me?"

Maude said, "That's crazy."

"It's a good solution. I won't be complaining and I won't say I've been left out, I promise."

Everyone thought the solution over to an extent. Maybe it was a solution. If Frank didn't want to go, why should the other three be held hostage? They'd after all be one a half-mile away. Maybe next year they could get the place for a week. Wouldn't it make sense to see what it's like? It was only for one night. What if the place was lousy with louses? It would be nest to know now instead of later. They were all thinking the same thing precisely.

Peter and Jeanne went off to find Mr. Pardge to make the arrangements. While they were gone, Frank and Maude spent some near-quality time together; Frank mind was elsewhere; he was thinking about the voice he'd heard in his dream.

 

During the afternoon they drank and they swam and in pairs went out in a canoe, then they had a steak dinner with potatoes and broccoli and salad. Suffice it to say that most of the time they were talking, talking, talking, but mostly not saying much.

On top of the nearby boathouse, all drinking, Peter said, "You know, one of us is going to die first."

In the canoe, Maude said, "This is a cigar-shaped lake."

Out swimming, Peter said, "Water makes me afraid when I can't touch anything under me."

During the meal on the picnic table Jeanne said, "Good thing we got the extra bottle."

Finally the long day had passed and it was getting dark. Jeanne seemed anxious to get a move on, so while Peter was taking in plates and cutlery Maude said to Frank, "You know, you could change your mind and come with us."

"No, no, no," he said in a reasonable tone. "We'd have to worry about all the stuff here, we didn't plan for that, besides, I really want to be here all by myself. I want the complete solitude of it, and the silence. You go up there, have a good time, come back in the morning. My psychic powers tell me I'll have coffee all ready for you."

Maude shrugged with a smile. That said it all.

The dishes got done and then it was much darker. Flashlights in hand, Maude, Jeanne and Peter bid adieu to Frank who watched their beams of light dance through into the night's trees.

The sun had gone down, and the moon was going down too.

In just a couple hours it was going to be very dark there.

Frank opened two cans of beer and went down to the Big Rock.

 

In the distance, below the smear of dark spiky trees, serpents undulated silently, seemingly the result of sunlight reflecting off the surface of the moon down onto the lazily respiring waters of the lake. Hullabaloo, hullabaloo, called a lone loon some waterways away: from Bear Lake, Moon River, or Leech Lake probably. Wet was all, or damp at least. Frank rotated his left foot and felt it satisfyingly crack. He drank from a can of beer and sighed. He wanted it to come and tell him whatever it was it said it wanted to tell him.

He twisted around and looked up the slope. Now with night so deep he could clearly see the lights of the cottage through the trees. The lights were moving. Then suddenly the image on his retinas dimmed and extinguished as first one then a second and third incandescent bulb got switched off and the cottage was no more. They hadn't wasted any time hitting the hay, thought Frank; then he noticed the moon was nearly down, indicating therefore that something close to two hours had passed since he had first seated himself upon Big Rock.

Darkness spread across the land. A rip across the distant vista showed only where the land (black) was not the sky (deep grey, lightly freckled with faraway suns).

Hwish, hwish, started (or continued) the little ripples on the little stones. The loon was long gone. Frank could figuratively not see his hand in front of his face, or so it seemed. He could not have told you where he ended and where Big Rock began. His ears were gone, replaced by unmediated sound. He had no more illusions to entertain. There was but one spot‑his soul‑at the centre of things, and also another spot‑nature‑at the other centre of things.

(Or was there something else going on?

(This is [roughly] the symbol for infinity.

∞

(Frank felt himself to be at the centre of the left side of the symbol, with nature at the centre of the right side of the symbol.

(Or was there something else going on?

(This is [roughly] the symbol for negated infinity.

⧞

(Frank felt, or knew, that this was a more correct representation, with his soul at the centre of the left side of the symbol and nature as the bar between the two halves. At the centre of the right side was some thing that balanced his soul.)

The darkness deepened still as Frank sat on Big Rock. He couldn't focus on the difference between land and sky anymore. The stars above were reflected neatly into the waters below. A voice was about to speak. What could it possibly say? He hadn't dissolved into nothingness, that he knew. He knew because the voice was going to say something to him and (who knows?) him alone.

Still with the stars above and below, he imagined himself saying, as clear as could be, "Hello?"

And it rushed in upon him like a great wave in a typhoon but not like that for the wave was benevolent, and full of light, and sound, and it smelled like violets and lavender.

And the voice said, We are with you and we love you.

And Frank asked, Where are you?

And the voice said, We are above you and below you; we are in front, in back, to the sides; in every direction we are, and to every depth we are. We populate your past, and we will be with you in the future. You can hear us now, and you can hear us say that we love you and always have and always will.

And Frank asked, Why do you love me?

And the voice said, Because you are aware of us. You are making us aware of us. You are making us speak. Oh we love you so much!

And Frank asked, (was it aloud?), Why are you telling me this now? Why haven't I known this all along?

And the voice said, We love you, we love you, we love you. You couldn't hear us for all the noise of your self. It's as simple as that. You can hear us now.

And Frank said, Are we alone? Is there nothing else?

And the voice asked, Everything here is here. Nothing is missing here. This is complete here. Everything here is here?

And Frank asked, You keep saying here. Is there a there somewhere?

And the voice said, Oh yes, there's a there. And there loves here; there loves you, and there loves us. The other end of the gyre, there's more; this end of the gyre, there's us. You, here, have caused us to speak, at this end of that which is representational. You are something special.

And Frank asked, Why me? Why am I so special?

And the voice said, You are louder than we are; that is the difference we have. Your sleeping friends are also a part of us, a moiety of them is us. And a moiety is special. You are mostly like us.

And Frank asked, So what are you? What are you exactly?

And the voice said, We are nature; nothing more and nothing less than nature.

The darkness and light love you.

The sky above and earth below love you.

The animals and all the plants love you.

Your brothers and your sisters love you.

The waters and what's beyond love you.

The vapours and what's beyond love you.

The rocks and stones love you too.

All creation loves you, Frank, you know.

You give us ourselves, you must see that.

 

As promised, the coffee was ready when Maude, Peter, and Jeanne came back. Frank said, "This is my thing. Bacon, eggs, toast, coffee. That's all we need. So how's the cottage?"

Jeanne said, "It's nice. Good beds! Maybe next year we can get it for a whole week."

Frank said, "That sounds pretty good. We can see what we can do. Toast, here comes toast."

They all arranged themselves in the alcove. Frank slid the eggs onto plates and with the bacon on a plate between them everything was great.

Maude as she slid an egg onto her plate asked, "So how was it, here alone without us?"

AND Frank said, "It was ... All I have to say is that I love you all; you, my love, and you, Peter, and you Jeanne; I love you all. I am a part of nature, and nature loves you all."