Where is that place...
There is such a deadening lack diversity in nature in Dallas. Maybe I am spoiled, because I spent my childhood in California. I grew up chasing more butterflies than I could name, in a neighborhood with food growing in everyone's yard. Avocados, berries, apricots.. they all seemed so abundant. I body surfed with dolphins in the ocean.. We had whale watching and nature hiking for school field trips. There were so many different kinds of birds. Ant species had wars right under foot. It seemed so alive.
Texas has life, but it all seems to be the same. I feel like a kid at christmas if I see anything more unusual. I am still in awe over the large healthy fox I saw cross the road on my drive home from work... but there is no great unknown.. no hidden place of life... just life passing through.
Where is this world I used to be a part of? The seaweed 13 feet tall threatening to swallow you if you fell off the dock. The crabs running across the rocks and seagulls trying to snatch them or whatever you have in your hand. Pelicans big and mean. Tarantulas and scorpions a drive away in the desert. Bears threatening to steal your pick-a-nic basket BooBoo in the mountains. Bees as big as a ping pong balls that chase you! Honey suckle and jasmine like a spell in the air. Never ending nature.
All I have here are june bugs, house geckos, and toads mixed with the occasional urbanized raccoon, opossum, squirrel, or armadillo.
Even Oklahoma has more variety than this. Hawks.. Buffalo... bobcats! Vultures and long horn and deer. Coyotes yapping in the distance. People wrestle catfish up there. Why is Dallas so out of touch with the world? When did a back yard BBQ become The Great Outdoors?
Maybe I am romanticizing... or maybe I am tired of asphalt and drainage ditches... and parks with mowed lawns and more people than trees, park benches surrounded by traffic and exhaust fumes. There is no break from the city here.
Texas has life, but it all seems to be the same. I feel like a kid at christmas if I see anything more unusual. I am still in awe over the large healthy fox I saw cross the road on my drive home from work... but there is no great unknown.. no hidden place of life... just life passing through.
Where is this world I used to be a part of? The seaweed 13 feet tall threatening to swallow you if you fell off the dock. The crabs running across the rocks and seagulls trying to snatch them or whatever you have in your hand. Pelicans big and mean. Tarantulas and scorpions a drive away in the desert. Bears threatening to steal your pick-a-nic basket BooBoo in the mountains. Bees as big as a ping pong balls that chase you! Honey suckle and jasmine like a spell in the air. Never ending nature.
All I have here are june bugs, house geckos, and toads mixed with the occasional urbanized raccoon, opossum, squirrel, or armadillo.
Even Oklahoma has more variety than this. Hawks.. Buffalo... bobcats! Vultures and long horn and deer. Coyotes yapping in the distance. People wrestle catfish up there. Why is Dallas so out of touch with the world? When did a back yard BBQ become The Great Outdoors?
Maybe I am romanticizing... or maybe I am tired of asphalt and drainage ditches... and parks with mowed lawns and more people than trees, park benches surrounded by traffic and exhaust fumes. There is no break from the city here.