Last Updated on September 23, 2024 by Chris and Lindsay
(September 24, 2024)
Lindsay exited the car before I even brought it to a full stop, camera dangling from her neck and elk caller pinched between her lips. We were about five miles down a dirt road that was another five miles or so off the highway, as much in the middle of nowhere as one could be while still having one bar of cell service.
The dogs were going crazy in the backseat. Getting them riled up in the Black Hills of South Dakota doesn’t take much. The wildlife is abundant here, and these dogs love interacting with whatever animals we come across. Even the pack of coyotes we just passed a mile back didn’t intimidate them when the wheels finally stopped and Lindsay began hoofing it through the tall grass and shrubs of the prairie.
Elk. Bull elk. Lindsay had spotted a big bull on the hillside as we drove the narrow dirt road. I have always been amazed at how she sees wildlife clearly and from such a distance.
By the time I turned the car off and let the dogs out of the backseat Lindsay was a few hundred yards across the field and starting her trek up the hill toward the bull. Even from a distance, I could see he had a rack of which to be proud. And despite Lindsay’s gentle but steady movement across the field, he remained poised at the top of the hill, looking back toward us in seeming indifference.
It’s bow season now. He should at least be a little concerned that Lindsay was concealing a weapon. But he didn’t care so much.
Maybe he had the confidence of having survived a handful of hunting seasons before. Or perhaps the eerie cow call resonating from Lindsay’s lips was just enticing enough for him to consider sticking around for a little longer to see if a cow emerged from the woods somewhere near Lindsay.
He was majestic – as majestic as the sunset over the valley that I began to enjoy in peaceful solitude as much as I could. This was perhaps our last drive through the backroads that have become our home as much as that of the bison, elk, coyote and other wildlife. Lindsay had hoped to see elk at the end of the rut before we left. This bull would see her off.
As I listened to the still sounds of the prairie and tried to relax, I sensed a welling of anxiety. The sound of the wind through the brush and the crickets chirping couldn’t provide the peace my mind sought in the moment.
What if the car didn’t start?
It was sunset, and we were on a backroad of a backroad with only one bar of cell service. It sounds absurd to think this. But just three weeks ago, our car died on a similar dirt road – a specialty fuse had blown for no reason and we had to have it towed from the middle of nowhere just before the sunset.
Then, coyotes began to howl. We had seen three of them hunting in a pack just a mile back. And we’d find out shortly that another half dozen had joined at a nearby “prairie dog town.” I let our dogs out of the car so they could be dogs and enjoy running through the tall prairie grass.
What if the coyotes decided to sneak up on them through the grass? What about Lindsay alone, stalking that lone bull elk on the hillside?
I have learned that fear is considered “irrational.” It is the expectation of some future event taking place (or not taking place), for which we trade in our present peace in exchange for wrestling with the thought of what may or may not happen.
In a world where anything can happen at any time, it would seem natural to allow one’s mind to wander to some occasional “what ifs.” But finding myself in the middle of a beautiful moment should have eased all concerns about anything past or future and left me totally immersed in the present.
Still, my mind wanders…
I was raised in the woods. No, it was not the Mowgli or Tarzan experience where the wild animals raised me without parental involvement. I had (have!) great parents who understood the value of allowing their kids to explore the outdoors. It was a time when kids could be kids and the setting sun reminded us to return home for supper.
My parents still live in the house I grew up in, tucked a quarter mile down a single-lane road that backs up against a lake and a piece of property that will never be developed as it belongs to a scouting organization.
As a kid, I spent more time in the woods and on the lake than in school. I didn’t skip school. But every waking moment before or after school, especially on the weekends and holidays and without doubt during summer vacation, I was off wandering the woods being a boy.
I used to run through the woods and swim in the water without fear. I climbed the tallest trees, often hauling pieces of driftwood or other branches to build makeshift lookouts. I didn’t think about falling from a tree branch or drowning in the lake. My proficiencies as a boy exceeded any doubt or fear I may have faced. But then, I was too naive even to consider doubt or fear.
I can’t tell you the number of snakes I encountered, primarily water moccasins (“cottonmouth”). I jumped over most or, if I felt particularly boy-like, I would throw rocks or sticks at them, mostly to scare them away rather than to harm them.
And there weren’t many days when I was on or near the water when two bubbly eyes and a well-centered snout didn’t track my movements. Alligators belonged in the lake more than I did.
But between the snakes, alligators and anything else that might have harmed me – it seems we had an unspoken agreement to live and let live.
Looking back, I know that is not how life goes. I am sure any snakes could have struck me, and any number of alligators could have dragged me to the muddy depths of the lake.
Yet, as a kid, the world seemed different. It was as it should be, not as I see it now.
I remember returning home during my first fall break from college. I was in the epicenter of a “coming of age” moment when two worlds collided at breakneck speed. The new world was preparing me to be an engineer or a naval officer and all that both would require of me. The old world was contained in the woods behind my childhood home.
I walked down the dock and saw remnants of my childhood. Parts of a fort still hung from a bough of an old oak tree, clinging desperately from rusty nails I swiped from a construction site. Tall cypress trees still bore the scars I put in them a decade before, slashing marks I thought at the time would lead me home if I ever got lost in the swampy Florida hammock.
Then the snake slithered past and I screamed.
That is how I knew my life had changed in the slamming together of these two worlds. What once felt safe and natural had now turned deadly. A time in my life when I lived without fear or consequence was erased by the mere thought that something could go wrong.
Forty-two years later, my parents still live in the same house I grew up in. Every time I return to visit, my first trip is down the dock to the lake. All signs of my childhood adventures, save the subtle raised edges of cuts in the side of one or two old cypress trees, are gone.
What is left is simply memories, a little regret that those years slipped away so quickly, and a tiny bit of fear for everything that could go wrong on one of those walks down to the lake.
My dogs love to run through the woods and swim, but now I worry they may become victims of the snake or alligator that once spared me but has no regard for them. A rusty nail sticks up from a broken board, inviting tetanus or the pain of an open wound if I do not watch my steps carefully.
A thousand worries flood my mind instead of the peace and joy these woods once brought me.
Is this what life is? Do we exchange one moment for the next without regard for the consequence or cost of the transaction?
This notion has overwhelmed me as we prepare to hit the road again later this week. We call it our “farewell tour” – the last-minute cramming in of everything we love and know we will miss as soon as we turn the motorhome away from the Black Hills of South Dakota.
My morning walks, of which there is only one left to do, are more precious. Sitting outside watching the dogs chase chipmunks and birds feast from the feeders Lindsay has hung from the ponderosa pine trees outside our camper means everything to me.
Becoming aware of the transaction that will soon take place, in leaving this moment in life to arrive at the next, I do not find myself fearful or regretting anything. Instead, I try to remind myself to live more in the moment and embrace each experience for what it is right then and there.
We have plans to return here, sooner than later. And when we leave at the end of the week, we are headed back to a familiar place, one with snakes and alligators and subtle scars on cypress trees.
But when the prairie comes alive at sunset, with the rustling of wind through the brush and the sound of crickets and coyotes filling the atmosphere, I have to choose peace and love over fear.
I am learning to do this even when I do not want to. Already, I am tense about whether the motorhome will break down or whether we’ll encounter more severe weather, like the hail storm that totaled our Honda CRV, necessitating this return home in the first place.
So, I must remind myself to let go of the fear and irrational obsession with the future and what may or may not happen in my circumstances.
Instead, I look back on those days of running wild and free through the woods behind my childhood home and I think – one day this moment will feel like that.
One day, I will long for the sound of the prairie and coyote and I will remember looking with such excitement and expectancy at my dear bride calmly and courageously moving forward toward that bull elk.
One day, even the memory of him standing with such confidence at the top of the hill will invoke the same sense I feel when I remember what it was like to climb trees and build rafts to explore the woods and lake.
Is this life? Here and now, where I must learn to push back against the fear and doubt and face the beauty of this present moment?
If it is, I look forward to learning to spend more of my life in the present than in the future.
Because Lindsay and I are so relational, we know that you might be one of a handful of people who have reached out lately, sharing how episodes in your life seem to coincide with ours eerily.
We’re grateful that you’ve taken the time to share these experiences with us, making what could be just an impersonal email a conversational exchange in which we pray you learn something from us and, in turn, we do the same from you.
We have entered a chapter of life where, at 42 years of age (and whatever Lindsay is… we’ll never know her actual age!), we are truly in pursuit of Abundant Life, and we are inspired to share this pursuit to encourage you to look at your life just a little differently.
Please let us know what’s going on in your life, whether you want us to pray for you or know that you exist. We don’t take your presence in our lives for granted—whether we’ve met you, have known you for years, or you have just stumbled across this awkward couple trying to forge a path in life that leads to greater Love and Peace than most will ever know.
Thank you for being a part of our wander. We hope this story and experience relate to you and inspire or impact you in some way to live life with a little more expectancy toward the beauty that surrounds you.
See you next week!
Much Love,
Chris & Lindsay + Everest + Huckleberry!
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