A Thousand Paces Out

How far out can a really good sniper guarantee a clean kill?

How long a walk does it take to completely lose civilization?

What’s the distance between two large neighborhoods in a city?

How long of a walk does it take to reinspire a dormant imagination?

About a thousand paces?

I’m almost two inches over six feet tall with average legs, making my stride slightly over thirty-eight inches. It’s considerably shorter in soft sand. More like two and a half feet at most. I share this with you because today I’m measuring one fanciful little piece of my life measured by a couple thousand paces on a round trip stroll down a jungle path.

I found it truly remarkable that even now, ten percent into the twenty-first century, how quickly all things human — sight, sound, smell — can still be made to disappear in less than thirty short minutes. Even more remarkable was my discovery of many small natural treasures, some of which were pleasant, others grim, all wondrous.

This morning, however, I first spent a few hours out in a cinder block hut in a field with a small dedicated cadre of amateur radio operators, practicing the setup and use of emergency field communications. After all, we do live in hurricane country, and weather emergencies almost routinely knock out conventional reach-out-and-talk systems.

Feeling good about doing something for my community this hot Florida morning, on the way home, an impulse drove me to treat myself. I did so by taking a rare hike into some rough territory in search of inspiration for a unique image of the wild — even if mostly born of my mind’s eye. My car almost found its own way to the tiny parking area of the Charlotte Harbor Buffer Preserve, here in Southwest Florida.

Half an hour later, with camera and lens slung over my shoulder, I found myself deep into what felt like a mix of woods and jungle whose lumpy floor was mostly white and some gray sand. I could now see that much of it was overgrown with the greenest of grass and weeds, punctuated by rotting stumps here and there, in rainbows of browns. In fact, there was a good deal of dead and dying stuff everywhere — even stinking carrion. A dead possum, or what was left of it, could be seen in the midst of no less than half a dozen turkey vultures. These are ugly birds whose stench is derived from constantly bathing the ends of their wings in their own putrid urine.
Amidst this lazy, almost slow motion frenzy, a lone sentinel towered thirty-five feet over this grim dance of death and life. As the twisted ghost of a long dead tree stood suffocating in a heavy cloak of emerald kudzu, I imagined this apparition to be wielding either a stabbing weapon or a wand. Perhaps she was in a quandary over this spectacle of odious carnage that lay unfolding at her imaginary feet. Not wanting to reap her wrath, I quietly stole several rapid-fire photos and reverently backed away.

Lots of live stuff too. An ornately dressed orange and yellow and black butterfly, singular in size, lighted on a nearby crumbling stump and offered a delightful counterpoint. Where on the wheel of life had the butterfly landed? From crawler to cocoon to flights of fancy to dust on a rotten stump, does he have days or weeks to wonder, to aspire, or to simply crawl or flit from place to place? Is his only purpose in life and death to inspire others in the food chain to wonder? Or to just eat?

Lots of stillness. Lots of movement. Natural, not groomed. Beautiful. Raw. Delicious in its chaotic orchestration. Rich textures bombard me. Quite different than the fastidiously manicured and entirely predictable marina resort community where we live. I’m not afraid to admit that this city kid harbored just a hint of trepidation. At the same time, I found it delightfully simple for my imagination to meander along with the rest of me. But I guess that was the point of this soon-to-become foolhardy hike.

The sun beat down brilliantly and incessantly from a mostly clear summer sky. I had long since left any visible trace of man’s hand behind, except for the camera over my shoulder and the clothes on my back. I realized, at that point, that is an unfortunate rarity for me. Contrived, by design. Once I had turned sharply away from an aging welded wire fence topped with a single strand of severely rusted barbed wire, it was just me and trees and sand and stink and fragrance in this intentionally untamed tropical forest. I continued to follow my very personal choice of a sandy but overgrown path.

I was having fun getting fundamental in a small way, not unlike the guilty pleasure of dirt under your fingernails, perhaps a grimy spot on the end of your nose, gratification born of fixing an engine or planting a tomato. A bit off the perfectly proper path we’re often expected to walk ever so correctly.

Fortunately, not much was biting, except the occasional fire ant finding himself suddenly and unexpectedly transported on one of my ankles or toes. You see, I wasn’t wearing boots, not even shoes. Nothing but my ever-present flip-flops, de rigueur for this part of the world. The heat index was well over one hundred degrees, so the sun was biting as well. I could feel the tops of my feet searing as I walked, but the more painful sensation was the heat on the bottom of my feet. If I failed to lift my next step high enough, the toe of my flip-flop would scoop up just enough hot sand, trapping it between sole and sandal. Reaction? Shake it out ASAP, before baked sole.

All in all, my impulsive decision to take this walk was definitely not turning out too badly, although the freshly laid cloven hoof prints directly in front of me, somewhat larger than the palm of my hand with fingers spread wide, caused a thoughtful pause. We have wild pigs in these parts. Very big and very black. Some are over four hundred pounds. It turns out they’re not much of a threat unless they accidentally run over you, or they perceive you are threatening their young. This fact was not governing my thinking at that point, however. The prints in front of me were pointing away, so I moved on without much trepidation once reason triumphed over a fickle tickle of almost fear. We have panthers as well. Very protected and very shy. I saw no evidence of one of these cats.

After shooting maybe a hundred pictures, dialing in various exposure settings as a guard against my own lack of photographic confidence, I ultimately came to undergrowth so dense it would have been foolhardy to proceed, I did an about-face at this virtual dead end to start my return trek to the car. By now, I was feeling confidently primitive within this time capsule of my invention. Casting aside concerns of skin cancer, I cast even cast off my shirt. For an hour, I was king of the jungle, and kings are not to be fettered by rags of man’s hand on their regal frame. Only the sweat of my royal labor was now my cloak of office.

With my mission accomplished, on a whim I began counting my steps on the return trip. This also vectored more of my attention toward ground level. I had unconsciously been avoiding unfamiliar vegetation, particularly since both feet and ankles were mostly naked, and because this green stuff was fairly dense and not entirely avoidable, no matter what.

This is when I noticed other delicate imprints in the sand. Snakes leave a distinctive wispy trace of their frequently interrupted path. Jerky. Lots of wisps in this sand that start and stop. Lots of small ones. Made by the diminutive but deadly poisonous coral snake, perhaps? It was now ridiculously obvious that my choice of attire took on an element of sheer negligence. With the car now in sight, this was not the time to die from stupidity.

It wasn’t until later, when I had returned home to jump into a badly needed shower, that I noticed my feet were covered with a medium dark dust reminiscent of charcoal. But I recalled the sand  being mostly white. Then I remembered seeing a controlled burn of dense undergrowth nearby, along the road recently, a proactive method of fencing in wild fires that frequently occur here when brush is dry and sky is lightening.

This dust was persistent stuff. Only a stiff brush would release that dirty stain from my troubled soles. I had apparently ground it well into my sand-hardened callouses. The few fire ant welts could not be scrubbed off, but the brush helped to numb the itch quite nicely, at least until I could find the Benedryl creme.

Finally purged of sweat, dust and dirt, I dwelled on how much can happen in the span of a thousand paces out, and could have happened during the thousand paces back. Not quite half a mere mile each way. Not even an hour of my life, which I had likely and unwittingly risked injury, at the very least, in my impetuous ignorance. I’m trying to convince myself that inspiration derived from this short trip into the bush warranted the risk. But all in all, a pleasant walk is always its own reward. Next time, however, I definitely wear shoes, socks and pants.

Someone was definitely watching out for me today, a thousand paces out and a thousand paces back.