Sunday Scribblings Post- Prompt "In the Beginning"
In the Beginning
I decide that I want to show him one of my favorite places. Surprisingly, it has almost nothing to do with books. I do know that it won't shock him completely. He knows what I'm like, so he probably should have at least expected this to happen at some point. Even though admission isn't strictly required, I put money in the donation box and we go inside.
I lead him down a hallway and we end up in a room that doesn't have much light in it at all, except for the light from the exhibits along the walls. They give off a pale blue light. Installed in the floor are the ancient remains of a pleisosaur and on one wall a slab of rock is mounted. It contains the bones of a bulldog terrapin. It seems as though the fish contained thousands of bones. They are a deep burnt umber against the warm sepia of the sandstone containing them. He smiles as he takes in the marine fossils exhibited in the room.
There are mastodons rising high above our heads, enormous tusks brushing against the ceiling only a couple of rooms away. They have their own hall, and while they are inspiring in their own right, they are not my favorite creature on display. I don't rush him, though. He wants to look at them, wants to see this world the way that I do. The rapture that I feel seeing these giant bones and imagining what the Earth must have been when they were still living, still walking, still breathing shows on my face.
While the process of fossilization holds no mystery for me, since I have been keenly interested in fossils, paleontology, and geology since I saw my first illustration of a trilobite in a book when I was three, I still understand the awe people must have felt, pulling these objects from the ground. I feel it every time I find a fossil. And while I have a better understanding of comparative anatomy than those early paleontologists, it's still so easy to see why they would have imagined great dragons raging over the planet to explain these strange remains. The wonder has persisted in me, even through my education.
We turn from Elephant Hall and go down another hallway, this one brightly lit from both natural and florescent sources. Despite the old, flat, brown carpet that has worn thin from so many footsteps and the smudges along some of the glass, or, maybe because of it, it feels a bit like coming home to me. We stop in front of one particular creature. I look up at him, taking in his expression, just as I do every time I introduce him to an old friend.
The animal is unwieldy, naturally armor plated and round. It is not a handsome creature. It isn't cute. Somehow, I still find it beautiful. It is a natural armored tank, perfectly evolved to wander amongst a world full of large-scale predators eating plants. I have always wished that, just once, I could have access to the display and be allowed to just lay my hands on it once, to feel that spheroid, plated shell and know the roughness of that fossil.
“What is it?” he asks me, knowing that I will be able to rattle the name of it off without even checking the neatly printed black and white tag nearby.
“It's a Glyptodon,” I answer him, “they're ancestors of armadillos.”
“Cool,” he says in response.
I know, then, that while he may not feel the same passion for fossils that I do, he gets it. He gets that I like it and that if I ever found one on my own, I'd probably never shut up about it. The best part is, though, that he's okay with it.
I decide that I want to show him one of my favorite places. Surprisingly, it has almost nothing to do with books. I do know that it won't shock him completely. He knows what I'm like, so he probably should have at least expected this to happen at some point. Even though admission isn't strictly required, I put money in the donation box and we go inside.
I lead him down a hallway and we end up in a room that doesn't have much light in it at all, except for the light from the exhibits along the walls. They give off a pale blue light. Installed in the floor are the ancient remains of a pleisosaur and on one wall a slab of rock is mounted. It contains the bones of a bulldog terrapin. It seems as though the fish contained thousands of bones. They are a deep burnt umber against the warm sepia of the sandstone containing them. He smiles as he takes in the marine fossils exhibited in the room.
There are mastodons rising high above our heads, enormous tusks brushing against the ceiling only a couple of rooms away. They have their own hall, and while they are inspiring in their own right, they are not my favorite creature on display. I don't rush him, though. He wants to look at them, wants to see this world the way that I do. The rapture that I feel seeing these giant bones and imagining what the Earth must have been when they were still living, still walking, still breathing shows on my face.
While the process of fossilization holds no mystery for me, since I have been keenly interested in fossils, paleontology, and geology since I saw my first illustration of a trilobite in a book when I was three, I still understand the awe people must have felt, pulling these objects from the ground. I feel it every time I find a fossil. And while I have a better understanding of comparative anatomy than those early paleontologists, it's still so easy to see why they would have imagined great dragons raging over the planet to explain these strange remains. The wonder has persisted in me, even through my education.
We turn from Elephant Hall and go down another hallway, this one brightly lit from both natural and florescent sources. Despite the old, flat, brown carpet that has worn thin from so many footsteps and the smudges along some of the glass, or, maybe because of it, it feels a bit like coming home to me. We stop in front of one particular creature. I look up at him, taking in his expression, just as I do every time I introduce him to an old friend.
The animal is unwieldy, naturally armor plated and round. It is not a handsome creature. It isn't cute. Somehow, I still find it beautiful. It is a natural armored tank, perfectly evolved to wander amongst a world full of large-scale predators eating plants. I have always wished that, just once, I could have access to the display and be allowed to just lay my hands on it once, to feel that spheroid, plated shell and know the roughness of that fossil.
“What is it?” he asks me, knowing that I will be able to rattle the name of it off without even checking the neatly printed black and white tag nearby.
“It's a Glyptodon,” I answer him, “they're ancestors of armadillos.”
“Cool,” he says in response.
I know, then, that while he may not feel the same passion for fossils that I do, he gets it. He gets that I like it and that if I ever found one on my own, I'd probably never shut up about it. The best part is, though, that he's okay with it.