I Want My Old Friends Back

Happier times, on a visit to Tucson

It dawned on me the other night, right before falling asleep, that what I want is to have my friends back. My partner will read this, and believe it is her fault. My in-laws may think they are to blame. No one is guilty except, perhaps, myself, for not anticipating the loneliness I would feel after moving to a new town. Two-and-a-half years in, and I am still grieving. I truly am misplaced here.

My partner and I agreed to come to Leavenworth, Kansas, to spend quality time with her parents, while they are still healthy, and relatively young. We have dinner out with them, at local restaurants, almost every Saturday night. I’m happy to do that, though the conversations typically cover the funeral(s) of the week, and news of people Heidi may know from her childhood, but no one I have any connection to. I’m used to talking about broader topics, society at large. I rarely do that now because of differences in ideology.

Let me emphasize that I like my in-laws, and most of the extended family of my partner. The problem is that this is my entire universe now. We get back to Colorado once per year. I think it has been close to a decade since we last visited Cincinnati. We both have friends strung out around the globe, some of whom we only know through social media, but are anxious to meet IRL (in real life).

Funny, as an only child many friends in my youth were adults. Now that I am an adult, or at least pretending to be one, I find the need to be surrounded by young people, to keep up my energy and enthusiasm for life. Colorado was a perfect mix of both youth and age. Everyone is physically fit, highly engaged in community affairs and in national and international issues.

Leavenworth, by comparison, appears at least on the surface to skew heavily geriatric. Many people are overweight or otherwise unhealthy, and you seldom see smiles. There are children and teens, of course, but I rarely encounter them. The twenty-somethings I see are wait staff at the restaurants. Fort Leavenworth fairs better, and despite the military affiliation, I have met some nice families there thanks to a couple of events I’ve participated in. You need passes to get on post as a civilian, though, and it is not a daily or even weekly proposition.

All this is to say that I am not incentivized to cultivate new friends here. I am simply not interested. It would take energy I do not have because I am deflated by where I find myself. It is a perfect circular storm of sadness feeding itself.

I want my old friends back. They gave my life purpose that I am lacking now, and I fed off the energy they have. I learned things from them. I helped teach them in return. We shared both optimism and pessimism for the collective future. We made each other laugh.

Practically the only thing holding myself together is an obsession and compulsion to document all the animal species I can find on our modest little property. It is enough of a healthy distraction to keep me away from potentially self-destructive impulses.

In the cold months I struggle constantly. I have lost nearly all my creative energy, and seldom write. It is not that I have nothing to write about, but I am unmotivated to do the exercise of pressing the buttons on the keyboard. Translating thoughts to actions is too daunting.

I believe advice is unhelpful. My situation is something I will have to solve myself. Maybe I’ll need to spend a year somewhere else, on my own. Who knows? I only hope that I recognize the solution once it presents itself.

Farewells and Goodbyes

This has been a hard week emotionally. I just returned from a memorial service where I said a permanent goodbye to a sixteen year-old student and friend who I knew for all too short a duration. Earlier in the week I said a (hopefully) temporary farewell to another young lady I have grown fond of and learned so much from. The grief and sadness is a little easier the older I get because I have learned to accept the choices of others, even when that means I am deprived of their regular company.

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Myself, Kaya, and Heidi

Kaya came to one of the Mile High Bug Club events at Cheyenne Mountain State Park about three years ago. She got my attention immediately because she had driven down from beyond the Denver area just to hang out with a bunch of "bug nerds" and look at moths and other insects drawn to the blacklights during the night.

As we got to talking, I learned that she, too, is an only child, with divorced parents, and eclectic interests. The more I got to know her over the years the more in awe I became of her intellect, adventurous spirit, and easy-going nature. She will be on to a new job now, in a far-off city, but I look forward to staying connected, and seeing her again someday should we agree on a place to seek new and fascinating insects.

It occurs to me that while I have genuine affection for Kaya, she embodies qualities I wish I had when I was her age: confidence, mostly, but an even richer analytical mind, a fearless approach to new experiences, trust in others, endless curiosity, and a sense of freedom. Yes, that romantic notion of just going wherever your heart and soul take you. Dream on, live fully, my friend.

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My late friend Erin

I met Erin Starkey, her brother Brad, and their mother in August of 2012 when we both turned out for a gathering of entomologists and insect photographers at a research station in southern Arizona. Imagine the surprise and delight to learn that we all lived in Colorado Springs. We got together again a handful of times, once for Erin's birthday if I recall correctly, and I shared books and insect specimens with her. I saw her last on my own birthday, last January.

Little did I know that she was equally enamored with all animal life, rabbits especially, and was a volunteer with our local Humane Society. I had no idea she was also artistically inclined, with a talent for songwriting, acting and directing, drawing, even animation. She was incredibly empathetic to the poverty-stricken, volunteering at shelters and soup-kitchens.

Unfortunately, I also did not know that she suffered from mental illness, and the spirit-sapping lows that come with that. On September 5, the heaviness got too much to bear and she took her life.

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She wasn't wanting to leave us, of course, she was attempting to leave herself. At least that part of herself that conjured demons of emotional misery, dominating every part of her psyche. As if that dimension of your soul could be shed like a snakeskin, killed with the equivalent of a silver bullet....but it always takes everything else down with it. Some people try and wash that part of their mind away by drinking. Others smoke, snort, shoot up, or otherwise exorcise one dragon with another. Some people try and outrun their own ominous shadow by literally running away.

The empty, unsatisfying, and self-destructive remedies abound, all of them equally useless, a mere temporary fix that might get you to tomorrow, but still leave you with no future visible to you on your horizon. You have choices only in what Devils to bargain with, what form of suffering is the least painful.

"You could choose to be happy if you wanted to..."

No, that is not how depression works. That is not how anxiety works. That is not how obsessive-compulsive works. That's not how any of this works. As long as you insist that it is "all in your mind," or imply that one has control over their state of mind, you are doing a horrible disservice to those cursed with mental illness. Stop being so damn condescending and free your own mind to contemplate the possibility that others can be "wired" differently than you, you healthy, sunshiny son-of-a-....

Listen, we all have our deficits, our ills, our weaknesses, our genetic uniqueness. I guarantee that you know people with mental illness whether you are cognizant or not. The manifestation of madness is not always what we have been taught that it is. Your job is not to assume, not to dismiss, not to pity, not to stigmatize, but merely empathize.

The Friends We Never Meet and the Ones That We Neglect

The other day my Facebook newsfeed blew up with remembrances of someone who I never met, or even "friended," but who clearly mattered to all my associates in the birding community. People who watch birds take it seriously, but empathy for one another runs deep among them. When one of them passes it reverberates like the the call of a raven throughout their circle. It got me thinking, long and hard, about who in my world might be slipping away.

One of the friends of the deceased shared a poem by her departed friend. The poem was about how we frame mental illness as it relates to artists. I suspect that this women suffered herself from depression and was frustrated by how society sees that anguish as somehow necessary in producing masterpiece paintings, novels, and other works, yet a self-imposed weakness in everybody else. It was a powerful piece of writing.

I clearly missed out by not having known this lady. I feel anger and guilt that I had never even heard of her until she was gone, and I no longer had any options. This is the one aspect of social media that I find excruciating, a "so close yet so far" phenomenon. I mean, I suppose I could "friend" her still, and have the archive of her posts to look back on, but it would be somehow empty, you know? One cannot be everywhere at once, even in the digital age. So many people will still not connect with you, nor you with them.

The irony is that social media isn't about you, nor is it about the next person you connect to, it is about we, and making more "we" as it were. It is about moments of clarity, like that poem, moments of sorrow like that day, and moments of joy, which is of course what all artists leave us with regardless of their medium.

Meanwhile, the flip side of all your friends on social media are the ones neglected because they don't do Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or whatever the next new platform will be. They are left in digital dust when we fail to pick up the phone, or a pen, and call or write like we know we should. Inertia kicks in, along with its best buddy guilt, and then we never get around to it, despite our own nagging impulses. Right?

Well, today I did it. I e-mailed my best friend (aside from my wife), and just flat-out apologized. I did not beg forgiveness, but granted permission for him to hate me for my abandonment of him. Of course I got an immediate reply whereby he essentially expressed that he was no better at reaching out, and that we should indeed talk soon. I had expected as much but also do not take the let's-pick-up-where-we-left-off shrug of let-bygones-be-bygones for granted, either. Life is short, complicated, conflicted, and otherwise tumultuous, prone to sudden finalities. No, I will leave him no doubt that I love him like the brother I never had.

Carl is a generous, dependable gentleman, with a wit and sense of humor that would make him a great stand-up comic if he ever wanted to be. The stories I could tell. Mostly, he just makes everyone around him comfortable and happy. I cannot imagine a greater legacy or example. He was like a second son to my mother, too, and looked in on her in my out-of-state absence, which was from 1988 to when she passed in 2014. Yet, here I have been, going on about my "business" daily and, albeit several states away, not paying him near the respect that he deserves. That changes now and changes permanently. It also gets me thinking about who else I have ignored who deserves better.

Some people are artists with brushes, pens, chisels, cameras, or even computers, but the raw medium is still life itself, and it is those rare individuals who sculpt our personal realities that matter most to us. We cannot let them fall by the wayside because their comfort zone is still where it probably should be for all of us, grounded in the tangible and not in the "cloud." Someday we will look up from our devices and find them vanished because we haven't been paying proper attention. Someday we ourselves will draw the line at the next big thing, fearing for our privacy or unable to afford the technology, or whatever other roadblock clips us neatly from society as we know it, like a feather molted from a bird.

Meet Heidi Genter

Since first meeting Heidi Genter in person, in the Denver airport, about the only times I don’t feel “misplaced” are by her side or in her arms. She has become the love of my life, endlessly supportive yet remaining the strong, independent woman that she is. I am very fortunate to have found someone so compatible and truly delightful.

We have tried to trace the origins of our friendship and it definitely started on Facebook. That sounds like a cliché, I know, but that social network can hold some wonderful surprises for those who take the plunge. Near as we can tell, Heidi and I both “liked” the Bugguide page on Facebook, and things just went from there. Who cares who contacted who first, if the results can be like this?

Heidi knows for certain that we started talking nightly on the telephone on April 9, 2010. She has an inclusive phone plan that allows for unlimited long distance calls. We are both bummed by Daylight Savings Time, since that means she is one hour ahead of me.

Heidi lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where she has worked as a keeper of the great apes at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo for 17 years. She also works part-time as an usher for concerts and other entertainment events at various city arenas and venues. Devoted to her Lutheran church, she sings in the choir and plays in the hand bell choir, too.

Heidi enjoys geocaching as a way to get into the great outdoors, venturing out nearly every weekend with a trio of friends. A gifted and talented artist, Heidi renders animals and other subjects in watercolor, selling some of her pieces through Café Press. She also created and produces an annual zoo fundraiser called “Art on the Hoof” that has been a great success. Heidi has a pet dog, two birds, a corn snake, and wolf spider at last count.

We finally met in person in Denver, on October 13, 2010. I had been invited by another friend, Abigail Parker, to go to Cape May, New Jersey to watch birds during the fall migration. Abby mentioned we would stay at her parents’ beach house in Ocean City, and that there was room for more people. I invited Heidi, but was truly surprised when she agreed to go. I am very respectful of her morals and beliefs, and would have understood completely if she had felt that this was just not the proper way to initiate a relationship, lodging in the same house when we were essentially still strangers. Her willingness to stretch her boundaries to accommodate opportunities like this is one of Heidi’s most attractive qualities.

We had a spectacular time leisurely strolling on the Ocean City boardwalk, snapping pictures of birds at Cape May Point State Park, and ending the day with a tub of Johnson’s Popcorn caramel corn and cuddling on the couch. Neither of us dreamed that we would hit it off so well, but were delighted. By the end of the trip, enjoying genuine cheesesteaks in Abby’s hometown of Philadelphia, we knew we had something to build on.

Home again in our respective cities, we decided we needed to see each other again soon. Heidi decided to use some of her precious vacation time to come to Tucson for New Year’s. Unfortunately, she brought the cold weather with her, and we darn near froze on our New Year’s Eve visit to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. That evening we had dinner and took in a comedy show at Laffs Comedy Club. New Year’s Day we went hiking in the Sabino Canyon Recreation Area, where Heidi found at least three geocaches. We saw plenty of birds and a trio of deer, too.

January second we went to the Sweetwater Wetlands and saw many more birds, enjoying the slightly warming weather. Heidi departed the evening of January third, but not before we took in the Butterfly Magic exhibit at the Tucson Botanical Gardens. Somewhere in all of this we also managed to play pool with Leigh Anne DelRay and her husband David Crowell. Leigh Anne gave her seal of approval to Heidi and I, which I really take to heart.

Most recently, Heidi went to southern California for a workshop on Imperiled Butterfly Conservation & Management. One of Heidi’s self-appointed responsibilities through the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo is the conservation of the Pawnee Montane Skipper, and her involvement with its recovery includes a series of workshops where colleagues share their methods and practices. I came out to meet Heidi at the conclusion of the workshop, and we stayed with her uncle Dale and his wife Beth in Carpinteria. Another great time was had by all, and we were really grateful for Dale and Beth’s hospitality.

Heidi and I have plans to meet in Chicago for an upcoming family reunion (her side), then I will check out Colorado Springs in preparation to move there this fall. We both move through life at the same pace, and I really think that is why we get along so well and believe that our relationship will endure. Thank you, Sweetheart, for all that you are.

Aravaipa Canyon

I am terribly behind in documenting places I have been this year. Way back on May 16, 2010, I had the pleasure of visiting Aravaipa Canyon in Pinal County, Arizona with my good friend Margarethe Brummermann and three visitors from elsewhere. Yen Saw was visiting from Texas, and Christian Ludwig came over from Germany. Mike McNichols came from next door: New Mexico. The heat was a bit too much for Yen and Mike, so they elected to depart in the early afternoon, but a good time was had by all before and after our party split.

A good portion of Aravaipa Canyon is a wilderness area managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in the United States Department of the Interior. It is closed to motor vehicles, with hikers forced to wade in the creek through the narrower portions of the canyon. The remainder of the canyon is mostly privately-held land and one trespasses at their own risk.

Our party had barely entered the lower reaches of the canyon when our caravan came to a screeching halt in front of a large Gophersnake, Pituophis catenifer stretched across the road. It was a truly magnificent reptile, and we were able to get multiple images before and after it attempted its retreat.

Actually, it retreated a bit too far for my tastes, looping a coil up my pant leg. Having encountered a rattlesnake the week before, I was a little bit edgy; and a whole lot embarrassed by the serpent’s affection.

Yen and Mike were looking mostly for mantids, and at this time of the year in Arizona most of those predatory insects are in immature stages, quite small and difficult to detect. Ground mantids in the genus Litaneutria can be found as adults, however. Mike also knows ants quite well, and he helped Christian find several colonies of different species. Margarethe was literally beating the bushes for beetles, and I was seeking photo ops for anything I could find in the quickly withering landscape.

Mike and Yen headed back to their hotel in Tucson after finding a dead cow. Their discovery and departure had nothing to do with one another.

Margarethe, Christian and I then continued up the canyon, finally coming to shadier and cooler places by the creek. As we pulled into our final stop along the road, a Common Black-Hawk took off from a low perch in a tree, the black and white bands of its tail both startling and exciting us.

By now, in late afternoon, the wind had picked up and the gusty conditions made photography more difficult. So did the dim sunlight under the tall cottonwoods. Still, we enjoyed seeing creatures like bombardier beetles (Brachinus) and Rubyspot damselflies.

We turned around in the parking area at the entrance to the wilderness area, and were treated to spectacular rimrock views. I look forward to visiting again, and hopefully walking the wilderness area. Aravaipa Canyon is certainly a gem in a state full of truly magnificent landscapes and natural attractions.

Many thanks to Margarethe for the transportation, and to Yen, Christian, and Mike for sharing their own knowledge of insects. I’m already counting the days until they visit again.

NOTE: Special thanks to Yen Saw for letting me use the image of Margarethe, and the one of the group. We are, from left to right: Yen Saw, myself, Margarethe Brummermann, Mike McNichols, and Christian Ludwig.

Farewell, Massachusetts

Over on my Bug Eric Blog I thanked the many kind people at the University of Massachusetts for making my work life there so stress-free and enjoyable. I would be remiss, however, in not acknowledging the many people who made my private life exciting and fun and happy.

I have to start with Crystalyn Russell and her dog Ruby, who were my first housemates. Crystalyn works entirely too much, but she is young and will get over it eventually. She is a wonderfully compassionate individual who takes good care of her friends, animals, and friends’ animals. Keep on riding, Crystalyn.

The second half of my six months here was spent living in the house next door to Crystalyn’s place. Thanks go to Linda Phillips for taking a chance on a near total stranger. People are very trusting of each other here, but I still consider it quite a risk that Linda took. She is literally surrounded by family right here in this South Deerfield neighborhood, though, so I had to pass muster with brothers, and Linda’s visiting adult children, Dylan and Logan. I find it flattering that it is going to take two new tenants to replace me now that I’m leaving. Still, why couldn’t the female microbiology grad student from Ireland have started here last semester? Thanks, Linda, for tolerating my idiosyncrasies.

My “home away from home away from home” was Athol, thanks to Dave and Shelley Small and Lynn Harper, all of whom took me to some great wild places. Dave is President of the Athol Bird and Nature Club, and a manager of the Quabbin Reservoir (where Boston gets its drinking water). He kindly took me to places the public just can’t go. I can’t believe how easy-going Dave is considering his many responsibilities. He is literally on call 24/7 in case of an emergency at the reservoir (like when a beaver dam breaks and floods the road, stranding several fishing parties). They are constantly doing exercises in mock spill clean-up, etc. Quite an amazing operation they have there. Shelley is an archaeologist with the federal government. She is also a great hostess and made sure I had a bedroom to sleep in when I visited. Thank you to both of you, I owe you big time.

Lynn Harper insisted on dragging me to fiber festivals where I could see sheep, alpaca, people spinning yarn, and sharing knitting secrets. These are not the old maids of your grandmother’s era, though! Lynn and I also went to plenty of wild places, looking for dragonflies along various rivers, in bogs, and other habitats. Lynn works for the state office of Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program, spending much too much time in a cubicle in a trailer, and the rest of it commuting to and from. I thank Lynn for also showing me the wonderful shops and eateries in places like Northampton, Greenfield, and Brattleboro, Vermont. Thanks, Lynn, for everything, give my best to Sophe and George (the cats).

When I wasn’t running around with Lynn and Dave Small, other folks were seeing to it that I got out and about. Nature photographer Steve Gingold patiently waited while I got my lazy bones out of bed to go looking for fauna and flora with him at High Ledges Wildlife Sanctuary and other great habitats. Steve is a true artist and takes great pains to get the perfect shot of a given insect, flower, mushroom, or landscape. Please visit Stephen Gingold Nature Photography to see what I mean.

John F. Carr took me afield a couple of times, including what may be the wettest, but most scenic hike I took out here, through October Mountain State Forest. Thanks so much, John, for letting me tag along. I enjoyed your company and sense of humor very much.

Last, but certainly not least, I have to thank the “bus gang” that commuted with me every morning to work on the UMass campus. They welcomed me instantly and we had many a laugh together. I got to go to the Keene, New Hampshire Pumpkin Festival thanks to them, and could have done lots of other things, too, if I hadn’t been “booked” already doing something else. They also made me join Facebook, for which I am actually grateful. Fondest thoughts and wishes to Stefanie Krug (who is taking me to the airport today), Francoise Walk, Jane Wrisley, Joanne Provost, Margaret Ludlam, Sandy Hay, Diane Willard, Heidi Bauer-Clapp, Craig West, and Gaetan Jacques. Wish I could take you all back to Tucson.

There you have it, the principal “supporting cast” for my Massachusetts odyssey. Everyone should be so lucky.

Leigh Anne DelRay

I recently met a person so exceptional that she deserves to be featured in both of my blogs, just to make sure you can’t avoid getting to know her. We met via (what else) the Bugguide.net website where she has started submitting images. While she is a certified animal enthusiast, from the feathered and two-legged to the hairy and eight-legged, her passion for life and art is contagious.

Leigh Anne has endured serious tragedy and drama in her life, but you wouldn’t know it from her affectionate, sunny disposition and creative and intuitive personality. She has a way of turning her experiences into a shared tapestry through her evocative photography skills and choice of subjects. Many of her images literally bring me to tears, but Leigh Anne recognizes the power of imagery and uses it to remind us that places, people, and stories are worth knowing, if only briefly.

One of Leigh Anne’s favorite pursuits is hunting meteorites. It has been a real education for me to learn just how popular a “hobby” this is, and the great value, both scientific and monetary, that is attached to “space rocks.” She recently invited me to a party at her employer’s house to watch the television debut of Meteorite Men, featuring her boss, Geoff Notkin, and his teammate Steve Arnold. Who knew Kansas was such a mecca for meteorites? About 30-40 friends of Geoff’s were packed into his living room, riveted to the TV screen, tuned to the Discovery Science Channel. A fun time was had by all, and I thank Leigh Anne for continuing to introduce me to more fascinating people. I’m not the most sociable sort, but she may change that.

Leigh Anne is well-traveled, too, and embraces all that a given location has to offer. While she was in Los Angeles she successfully auditioned as an extra in several films and popular television shows. For example, she was a patient with a broken leg on an episode of ER, and stood in line behind leading man Kevin Costner in the airport scene in the movie Dragonfly (alas she was left on the cutting room floor in that one). That kind of spontaneity speaks to her adventurous nature.

I should really let Leigh Anne’s work speak for itself, so I encourage you to visit her website, Callisto Images, and see if you, too, are not moved by her profound vision, the intimacy of her subjects, and the playfulness that she expresses. Thank you, Leigh Anne, for helping me re-awaken to the depth of life around us, and reminding me to “live in the moment. Oh, and lest one get the wrong impression, Leigh Anne is with another wonderful gentleman who is a gifted woodworker and a caring, upstanding individual in his own right.”