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Why I've Been So Scarce
I guess it comes down to just how much a human body can take over a period of fifty years. I began changing addresses (and countries) when I was only five years old. Life's been like that ever since. When I was fifteen I became a jack-of-all-trades field assistant to Smithsonian biologists in the jungles of Panama. I swore I'd get back to the jungles of Panama when I was shipped off to the USA. I did get back, but I was already in my thirties by then. Hiking around in the jungles wasn't as easy as it had been when I was half that age. Then came a period of about ten years when my body sustained several serious traumas and their relative healings. Some hang on engraved in the pain loops between my lower brain stem and my nerves as chronic pain (phantom pain). Despite all that, I still try to get out and hike. My last attempt I overdid grossly and it's taking me a few days and pain killers to get back to normality from the shambles of my body. I think that I lost something over time: even though I was hiking in dry dusty riparian habitats, in my mind I was still bounding up the slippery paths of Panama in the thick humid air and the musty smell of the forest floor decomposition. Gordo was still with me and the patches of fun light were beautifully bright green and shiny with flashes of Morpho butterflies. There were leaf toads in the depressions of boot steps, insects everywhere (you really didn't even need to turn a leaf to see several). It rained and sweat mixed with rain and it was glorious. It was all a delusion that kept me hiking long after I should have stopped, turned around and headed back for the now physical difiiculty of getting this old body back down out of the dry, dusty canyon and back home where the only tropical plants that live with me live with me indoors.
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