Tracking at Trackers
I've always wanted to develop the ability to walk around barefoot, regardless of surface. Through habit and necessity my barefoot periods are usually limited to brief post-shower stints and strictly kept indoors.
Shoes epitomize my relationship with the environment--I wear them because I'm scared of getting hurt, or dirty, or cold. This week long trip to Eel Creek provided an opportunity to face my fears and to work through them, step by careful step.
Eel Creek Campground nestles in the shadow of towering sand dunes along Oregon's coast, two hours southwest of Eugene. It is a wild place, a place where humans are intruders into an alien landscape brimming with unseen life.
We went to the dunes to track. An animal footprint left in the sand is clearer here than anywhere else we'll be this year, and so it is here that we learned about animal gaits, direction of travel, and how to distinguish each toe pad in the fine grained sand. On the first day, we found bear footprints winding their way between dunes. We trailed the bear through the sand, into a patch of dune grass where we lost the trail.
The animals who live here have no separation from the world they live in, no artificial barrier to keep out the sand, the wind, the rain. The only traces they leave are their footprints, and the occasional scat, impressions in the sand that we try to decipher with great effort.
To be barefoot here is to leave only my footprints, a path across the dunes that will soon vanish in the ceaseless wind. To shed my shoes is to give up something that separates me from my quarry, a hard construction of rubber and leather that minimizes the impacts of my steps, that allows me to tromp through dune grass and over prickly spines without notice or care. This is the way I am in the world, usually--unheeding of the sounds around me, the ground under my feet, the play of light across the clouds, or the activity of the animals around me that I cannot see. I am ignorant of how what I do impacts this place, this planet, our only home.
Callouses, like awareness, take time to develop. I spent the week pulling prickly spines out of my feet, including digging one particularly deep spike out of my foot with my knife. It came out with coaxing along with a clear liquid from under my skin, a sliver of a reminder that moving through fear brings pain. At times, I was overwhelmed with the magnitude of the task I had set myself and pulled on my shoes, seeking sweet relief from the constant attention required to wander a campground filled with plant land-mines.
Despite my human frailty, I managed to stay barefoot about 90% of the week, even walking the six mile round trip to the Pacific Ocean and back. On our final morning, walking back from the bathroom to my tent, I became aware of a constant, ceaseless noise. It was the sound of a high-pitched chattering I had never heard before. I stopped, and back-tracked, curious as to what the noise was. Looking up, I saw a squirrel, perched on a branch, tail twittering madly back and forth as she screeched out into the forest around her.
I see squirrels everyday. They are as much a part of the landscape as any house or car or neighborhood dog. I do not notice when their behavior is an aberration. I do not listen to the chattering of the squirrels to see what might have upset or scared them.
Such a small thing, the noise a squirrel makes. So easy to pass it by in the hum of daily life. But today, I noticed. I became aware of something new in the world, I heard something I had never heard before. I reached out, tenderly, with soft, scared feet. The world reached back.
Photo of Mae Mae. Taken by Reverend Blue Sky (Noel Tendick) at Eel Creek, Oregon.