John Pepin

As the hours, days, weeks and months roll past and into the rearview mirror, I think there is a tendency to take for granted the daily trappings of living.

Despite my best efforts to remain present, aware and grateful each day, I can see myself maybe like a sparrow that gets used to seed being sprinkled out onto the ground for it each morning at the doorstep of a kind soul.

Maybe it’s more like crows that get used to the scarecrow and have taken to going about their business of eating corn.

Whatever the force that creates it, whether a survival mechanism or otherwise, I find myself wandering mentally through my days somehow encapsulated in an existence resembling a snow-globe village.

It’s a beautiful place to be sure, likely a place I still sense from my past, but it feels like an almost forced complacency somehow.

I wake up each morning with things to do on my mind.

I hear the clock ticking and consider my path.

While I don’t ever want to waste time, I devote some of the sand in my hourglass to experiencing the small moments along my way.

Soon, a week passes and then another and then a month or more.

I am still exploring and learning, lending time and favors when I can to friends, loved ones, neighbors and strangers.

I keep working on so many things.

Then, one day, out of nowhere, maybe as I’m walking down an old dirt road listening to the birds or sitting down to breakfast in an empty room on a quiet Saturday morning, a sound comes ripping through my existence like the sharp crack of a rifle, the pi-toosh of a boulder tossed into the reflective waters of a pond or the bang of a deafening thunderclap on a soft, summer afternoon.

The crows have all scattered.

The scarecrow laughs.

Something changes abruptly, without expectation or anticipation.

Someone dies quickly or a house burns down, an earthquake shakes the earth for miles in every direction, or a seawall dissolves, leaving the rushing waters to flood the countryside threatening the lives of hundreds or thousands or more.

Often, in the grip of those events, we are in shock, acting in desperation with our awareness thrown wildly out of whack. Things seem upside down and incomprehensible.

When the dust settles, I find myself despondent, feeling blindsided and lost. It seems strange this would be the case as it is not the first time this has happened, nor will it be the last.

I know it will take time and direct attention on my part to recover from the loss, the grief and the anguish.

A person doesn’t have to look far in these days to find something gunning to set you backwards in your walk – knock you hard on your ass.

Reliably, I find comfort and recovery in the little and big things that nature does every day – some of those I have been perhaps too busy to pay attention to in scrambling to achieve the next great whatever.

I’ve heard the echo of the shotgun crack at least a couple times over the past few weeks. I think I initially went deaf for a couple of days.

I struggled to make sense of much of anything and even developed a temporary difficulty in speaking. I slept extensively when I was supposed to be awake and was awake when I was supposed to be sleeping.

The first thing I recall knowing indicating that my mind had turned back toward reality was a faint sound coming from outside our window. I couldn’t place the noise and rolled back over to sleep.

When I woke later, my wife asked whether I had heard the cardinal singing.

In January? “Yes,” she replied.

My derailed train of thought righted itself and I was at once curious and alert. A few moments later, I saw a male and female cardinal perched on the ground underneath our bird feeders.

I marveled at how brilliantly they were colored against a shimmering, white backdrop of snow.

I wondered where they might have been hiding over the course of these past several dreary and dark days. I answered myself immediately saying, “probably right here but you were too distracted to notice.”

That made sense.

I guess when you fall into the deep end you fall in all the way.

The next thing I noticed on my road back toward home was a group of deer outside in the front yard at night. I turned on the driveway light, opened the front door and stepped out onto the doorstep.

I had gone to a bag I had on the kitchen counter and grabbed a couple of apples. I tossed them out into the driveway and the deer scattered away. They soon came back, and I stood outside watching them eat.

A great horned owl began hooting from the trees back behind one of our neighbor’s houses. A repetitive dripping of melting snow from the roofline provided a constant low-level and slow pattering.

Beyond those sounds, the stillness, silence and relative warmth of the nighttime was welcoming, comforting and healing.

I still felt no real reason to speak other than when spoken to and I remained tired with my brain foggy and full.

The next day, I knew I was beginning to feel at least a little better when I decided to take my car out of the garage and go for a ride to do some errands.

While on my way, large flocks of Bohemian waxwings greeted me, flying above my Jeep and escorting me along my way.

I noticed that quite a bit of snow had melted, and rocks were now sticking out from the hillside snow in many places.

Back at home, I saw a set of deer tracks in the yard no bigger than a Kennedy half-dollar. I knew exactly which deer this was. It is a very diminutive animal I have seen around our neighborhood this winter.

I have nicknamed it “the dog.”

If the stars have been out over the past couple of weeks, I haven’t seen them.

I found some hope in a map I saw showing that purple martins are currently in Florida and Georgia, making their way back north toward our shores on spring migration.

The groundhog is set to make his appearance.

There are less than 90 days until the opening day of trout fishing season, and about eight weeks until the robins of springtime will be back here to sing us into summer.

Along with the peace and redemption I’ve been rediscovering in nature for who knows how many times, quiet and affirming piano music has also helped me feel better.

Chopin’s nocturnes are plaintive and haunting. George Winston’s “Winter Into Spring” and “Autumn” albums are good too.

Listening to this type of music is almost like soaking up the sound through every pore while at the same time sitting in blissful silence. It is very helpful and therapeutic.

Outside my window, the sun is shining today. That’s a big lift too.

A writer friend, who has a flair for uplifting messaging, dropped off a copy of his latest offering. It’s a short piece seeking to encourage readers in a troubled world.

He suggests “keep moving while you can.” He said family and friends should try to help each other and “make it a good day.”

“Think positive with the change of seasons in our U.P. of Michigan,” he writes. “a lot of beauty as soon the leaves on the trees, flowers begin to bloom and, of course, warmer weather. Also, the roads will be better for driving. So, for me, I try to be thankful for decent health.”

Whatever the prayer, whatever the wishes, aiming for the good despite the bad is the ultimate course of action. How you get there doesn’t seem to matter.

For me, I find my revitalization in nature.

Even when I am not seeking it, it finds me somehow.

With some time passed now, I see the crows are circling the field and they begin to land in the corn field again. I think the cycle is setting itself up to repeat.

The scarecrow is no longer laughing.

Outdoors North is a weekly column produced by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on a wide range of topics important to those who enjoy and appreciate Michigan’s world-class natural resources of the Upper Peninsula.