The warm, almost summery weather of the beginning of May has dissipated, and while we haven't reverted to snow, the days have been gray, cool, and rainy more often than not. A cold, thick fog descends and the ridgeline above campus is hidden by low-hanging fog. Crows call to each other in weather like this, two, three, or four caws in succession, and then the same number repeated by another crow. They never do it in any other weather. I don't know why.
I've been having a hard time convincing Steve Bees to study with me. He doesn't see the point in it. Right now, he sees that the problem is his wife's illness, period, and unless a solution applies directly to that problem, he isn't into it. I can understand why. Her situation must seem like such an all-consuming emergency that dealing with anything else feels like a waste of time. And yet, there is nothing that Steve can really do for Sarah, right now, because she's in the hospital and he isn't. He's already doing everything he can do, and in the meantime other problems continue to exist, including the one he came back here to solve--his inability to manage his justified anger over injustice and the waste of energy and the problems in his marriage that anger caused.
And he's not leaving. He could mope around somewhere else, if he wanted to mope. He could even teach a couple of college courses elsewhere, if he wanted to do that. But he's here. It's like he wants to do or learn or be something more, and he wants us to push him to do it.
So, I'm pushing.
I'm not exactly teaching him the same things Charlie taught me. I've decided not to push him into plant ID so much. Frankly, I don't think he needs to become an expert on natural history, he's already an expert on other things. I'm not sure what he does need, but I have a feeling that in my impulse to get him to listen to and sniff the snow the other week I was on to something. In some way, for some reason, he should spend more time outside and observing.
So, that's what we've been doing.
I have him counting bird voices, since it's spring, except I don't really have the clout to threaten him into compliance the way Charlie did me. For one thing, Steve didn't ask to be my student, so I can't play the demanding Yoda-like figure with him. So we're making a game of it. I quiz him every time I see him outdoors, and sometimes I tell him he's right and sometimes I don't. As I've learned, even ornithologists don't hear every single bird, and the point is to get him to keep trying, to notice more, not to accurately assess his performance for its own sake. We've also worked with visual recognition. I've had him sorting grass stems, feathers, seeds, twigs, photographs of insects....not trying to identify them, just trying to notice the differences among them.
But mostly we just sit outside or walk around for a half hour or an hour every day, and I ask him questions to get him to notice things. If we spot an animal, we watch it doing its thing for as long as it will let us. I want to get him into tracking, but I haven't decided yet whether to introduce it to him now, or wait until next year's snow.
I don't know if I'm doing this right. I don't know what he needs from me, or if he needs anything, or if I can give him what he needs.
I asked Charlie, the other day, how he knew how to put together a plan for me. He grinned at me an instant, and I grinned back, but I don't know what that grin meant. Then his expression changed and he looked away.
"If you're looking for a guarantee, there isn't one," he said, almost growling.
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