July 22, 2008--Among the Georges' Herefords

I’ll get back to this in a minute. How every morning I’ve been studying these seven Herefords grazing in the Riverview Hayfields Preserve, a natural pasture set aside by the Georges River Land Trust. An impressive pasture that descends in verdant waves down to the bank of the river where it is transformed into a tidal estuary. And very impressive cows in a British-countryside kind of way.

But we are headed to town. Thomaston. To the Café for breakfast.

I am worrying about us. Our inclination to settle quickly, perhaps too quickly into routines. Breakfasting is a case in point.

Wherever we are for more than a few days we try to find a place nearby for morning coffee; and depending on what might be going on in the kitchen, assuming there is one (we are often in remote places), for eggs, pancakes, biscuits and gravy, local specialties, whatever; which if available makes things even better.

Mornings for me are vulnerable times, the time wedged between the oblivion of sleep and the threats that linger in half-forgotten dreams, and wakefulness, that time when I need to reassemble those fractured psychic pieces I depend upon to get me through even a non-demanding day.

Thus favorite morning places are those where local folks gather, where their lifelong familiarities exude a warmth and security that nurtures, along with the caffeine, a return to consciousness. There, there is nothing to protect, nothing to defend. Let the aromas and banter blend, seep in, glance around to pick up a few encouraging smiles, perhaps exchange some chat about last night’s weather and the price of gas, and thereby get ready for what will surely occur.

I do not have much of a problem with any of this. The night demons that require exorcising and what they demand of me, what I need to do to prepare for the day is what it is. My worrying has more to do with concern about slipping so automatically into everyday patterns, routines that though they offer comfort may at the same time dull me to the excitement and lessons of the new and unexpected. Isn’t it true, all of which are essential to a life rich in stimulation, association, and understanding.

To put it simply, am I not stuck in a series of ruts, which I know too well I have the capacity to rationalize (the need to deal with demons, half-consciousness, tremors, and such); or is there something else, perhaps additional going on here?

Back, then, to the Herefords.

Heading north to town each morning along the River Road as the ground fog lifts its curtain along the Georges their hayfield reveals itself as if from behind a slowly rising scrim. The road dips as it approaches the railroad tracks and I, without thought, still half in sleep, slow down to avoid a rude jolt. The meadow is on the left.

On the third morning I began to notice something that previously hadn’t even registered—the cows, as we headed toward coffee, clustered in a small herd, like us seemed to gravitate each day toward the same familiar spot quite close to the river almost precisely centered in the field.

So precisely centered that if they had been grazing every morning at the same time in the same open spot, the same but asymmetrically positioned within the field’s boundaries, I would not have even noticed much less taken note of them. It was as if, knowing my need for order when my inner life is still astir, to catch my attention they had triangulated their way into the literal center of my emerging awareness.

After an hour and many coffees, now fully awake, with me calming, we turn south back toward our place on Spruce Point. And in that meadow I began to see that the Herefords at about the same time each day had drifted up the hill, closer to the road and closer still to the three conifers under which they would settle later in the day (that particular sameness confirmed by yet another early afternoon drive to Thomaston for our daily half-pint of sweet crab meat and two-for-a-dollar ears of lunch corn), seeking shade from the midday sun cast coolly by a small stand of ancient conifers.

The very same, even precise route, it would appear, each day. Now, I do not pretend to know much about cattle much less their inner lives; but I do know more than I ideally would want about mine and what these routines I so easily establish do for me. But I am wondering now as much about the biology of this as I have thought for years about its psychology.

Are there some mammalian creature linkages being revealed here? What bends these Herefords’ dreams? What must they do to gain control of their daily time? What imperatives guide them as they perhaps like me grope expectantly toward some calm place? Is some instinct at work within them, as within me, that directs our animal movements?

I can deal with that. In fact, if true, and of course there is no way of knowing, which I can also deal with, if true this brings me additional comfort. So I will assume it’s true. For them as well as for me.

They, I, we trace these daily patterns, I am now more convinced, not just to ritualistically banish threats often associated with surprise and newness but rather to gather the quiet capacities required to take in what comes our way, especially from the almost imperceptible. In my case, I feel, to absorb the layers of meaning from even the smallest gestures and motes of experience. That, I’ve learned about myself is the best that I can expect and achieve.

For them? Who knows. But there they are each day seemingly having figured out something that gets them nurtured, keeps them protected, and brings them association. Pretty much like me.

What they take from that, build upon it, if anything more, I can never know; but I do know that all that I still need to learn, the happiness that I continue to pursue, whatever I might have to say or contribute begin in the healthful cut of these daily circles.