I Stopped Dating Nature

Writing by Rebekah Doyle

Driving up Craycroft, driving along Sunrise, or driving across Tucson’s midsection my eyes look to the mountains at every opportunity. I will myself to focus on the road but it is especially hard at red lights not to search the ridgelines, fixate on the billowing smoke, and scan desperately for helicopters and planes. Where are they? What is happening on the other sides of the Santa Catalina Mountains that I cannot see? How are the people around me carrying on with their lives as a catastrophe looms above us? So much smoke, so many fires, for so many triple digit, windy days. The living room permits extended gazing upon a limited, if immediate view of the fire smoldering on upper Ventana Canyon and Cathedral Peak. In the evening I stand vigil in the driveway taking in the many blazes creating their own city on a hill. In the early dawn I step outside to scroll the real-time fire news feed on the peaks and canyons before me. The fires and the smoke plumes are muted before being stoked by the heat of the day and the unrelenting afternoon winds. Wildfire is a natural process and this big, Bighorn Fire was started on June 5th, 2020 by a lightning strike during the hottest, windiest time of year on a ridge already impacted by climate change, invasive species, and historical mismanagement. In the day or two after the first smoke plumes my husband and I worried from weather and wind forecasts and rate of growth that it would spread across the mountains and eventually consume many of our favorite places. I wish we had been wrong.

 For nearly two decades I had been dating nature. It was fun. There was always so much to see and talk about. A summer romance in the Rockies, a string of Saturdays in the Alps or the Southern Appalachians. Desert rock climbing, Colorado Nordic skiing, mountain biking in Quebec with woodland caribou, paddling amidst the alligators and cypress knees of South Carolina’s Lowcountry. I was promiscuous. I never stayed in one ecosystem too long or learned too much. Sure there were bad dates involving hypothermia or leaking tents, but there were also plenty of amazing excursions, including mountain biking upon a mountain lion in the Golden State’s golden hills.

 I could distinguish pines from oaks. I knew that cougars, panthers, and mountain lions were the same animal, which simultaneously relieved and unnerved my mother. But I never stopped too long to focus attention on the landscape beyond a cursory glance. Moving around relieved me of the obligation to think deeply and regularly about what species were where and why. Like any commitment-phobe, I wanted to keep things easy with no strings attached. Why become bogged down by complex family history and messy geologic underpinnings? It would take too much time to study so many scientific names and match them to faces. Besides, if I were going ultralight, how would I carry floras and guides and find the time for field journaling? And while I always pulled socks up over hiking pants in a tropical rain forest or swamp, I didn’t want to become the person reciting their life list or obsessing over a particular species of beetle without looking up at the canopy.

 My New England youth encouraged a Thoreauvian romanticism of the landscape tempered by a Puritanical distaste for the dark wilderness. The result left me alternating between a deep contentment watching loons or lily pads on a pond while obsessing about mosquitoes and ticks. The outdoors was a place to visit—preferably with outdoor gear and a purpose. It was a place I sought relaxation, cared about, and worked to protect, but I was most joyful when rushing down a mountain on a bike or hiking up a summit with a pack, unable to make detailed observations and take notes. Then I started hearing a deeper biological clock and the alchemy that is the transition into the mid-thirties left me thinking differently, noticing more, and starting to connect at a profound level. In essence, I stopped dating nature and entered into a long-term, committed relationship. I discovered my capacity for biophilia and became so captivated by some species such as the Elegant Trogon that I found myself stalking them online and in person. Conveniently, the trogons live in a canyon an hour away. I started asking more questions and actually researching answers. Why are tarantulas most often seen on Central Arizona trails in September and October? They are likely males looking for a female burrow during the annual breeding season. Some walk purposely down the trail, others meander as though they spent a little too much time on the local strip, Whiskey Row.

 While I did not move into a cabin in the woods, I decided to commit to the whole picture, to appreciate the subtle patterns as much as the charismatic megafauna and scenic views. This level of relationship has been so rewarding and the more I invest in natural history, the more I notice and am humbled. There will always be something new and interesting to learn about this life partner and for that I am grateful. But I’m also realistic. The honeymoon in Costa Rica is over. There are numerous aspects of the natural world that I’d prefer not to deal with such as bushwhacking in gator filled swamps or threading through a maze of poison ivy. There is also the vulnerability that accompanies forming such a deep kinship to threatened places and species. 

 It is now nearly three months since the fire started. Forty-eight days of burning across an entire mountain range. The fire encompassed over 185 square miles, or in Rhode Island terms, about 1/6th the size of the Ocean State. The trails are closed and there’s limited access to see the affected areas up close. It has been a record hot and dry summer and the few small storms we had brought black slurry from the mountains into the washes in town. The threat of flash floods and debris flows remains, should heavy rains return. I still scan the ridgelines at stoplights while driving up Craycroft or along Sunrise. I look for green patches in the brown, pockets of vegetation that did not burn, something to remind me of normal.

 This Sky Island rising above the Sonoran desert contained worlds within worlds, unique and especially vulnerable. A week before the fire started, I sat on a boulder in Wilderness of Rocks, drinking tea in the early afternoon under the shade of ponderosa pines. It felt like visiting an old friend and I hiked onward with a similar feeling of contentment while looking forward to another visit later in the summer to spend more time with the plants, the creek, and the butterflies. Needless to say, I did not get a chance to check back in with the columbines, the butterflies and the pools usually filled with monsoon rains. This large scale landscape change is a visceral loss that for much of the summer permeated my sleep and left a hollowness that invaded the days. I prefer to avoid comparison of losses of natural landscapes and non-human species with human tragedy, especially at a time of a global pandemic and so many other devastating natural disasters. And yet, I grieve Romero, Pima, Finger Rock, Ventana, Esperero, West Fork, and Samaniego Ridge—even though the thick chaparral up there lacerated my shins. I grieve tucked away corners and plants and animals as though I have lost friends because in a sense, I have. I grieve the unnamed places on the mountain and those I had yet to connect with but knew as though an acquaintance. 

 The Santa Catalina Mountains symbolize my transformation from dating nature to long-term commitment, messy parts and all. I first got to know them through a spring break trip climbing sunny towers of rock and hiking in snowy pines in 2003. I marveled at the ability to experience landscapes from Mexico to Canada while ascending from 3000ft to over 9000ft on the Catalina Highway. It was a bit like speed dating nature.  I eventually moved to Tucson and this relationship evolved. The canyons and mountains weren’t just a place to recreate or socialize, they became companions and the species in these landscapes provided a strong sense of community. I am taking this time to process what has been lost while also preparing to forge new connections and redefine my relationship to a much-changed place. Memories of hermit thrushes singing in a grove of aspens and conifers, bighorn sheep on impossibly steep slopes, and a coatimundi among the oaks propel me forward into the difficult days ahead.

About the Author

When not working with children as a Physical Therapist, Rebekah Doyle can be found exploring mountains, deserts, and oceans by foot, pedal, and paddle. She is grateful to live in Tucson where good food and varied conversation with friends happens often and outside. More of her writing can be found at: https://www.clippings.me/rebekahdoyle