Sitting on the bank of the swamp on a soft clump of pine needles, I gazed transfixed at the miracle unfolding in front of me. The soft rays of early October sunlight enveloped the mosquitoes in an ethereal glow as they danced an aerial ballet. The wetland sky seemed like a living chandelier dripping with diamonds, as these insects swung in random crescendos, millions of them, making contact, free-falling, then climbing with a swoop to do it again in their mating dance. A week or two earlier, I mused, these insects relatives likely gorged on my blood as I worked the patch. Now they were providing me with the most exquisite performance, courtesy of Mother Nature. The profundity of the interconnectedness of all living things washed over me and I felt a strong sense of the sacred.
My apprenticeship, that thirty-two day stint in the woods, was full of moments like those, as I tended the crop in the mornings with the Z-Man, then went off to commune with nature.
The Z-man was our enforcer on the crop. With a stolen black colt .45 which he kept under a log, he was a 5'6, 265-lb. black man with a shaved head, earring, tattoos, a degree in philosophy, and a penchant for old Tom Jones records. We were the two new guys, elected to guard the crop and see it to the finish.
With nothing else to do after the day's round of checking on and maintaining 600,000 dollars worth of pot, I nestled into the routine of taking the Z-Man trout fishing. To this day, that indelible impression remains etched in my mind. That big black man, looking like a biker bar bouncer, holding a delicate little trout rod, intently practicing the intricate art of brook trout fishing. With a dancing rod tip and taut line, his reel whizzing, hed glance at me for approval with a yelp of exhilaration. His child-like glee at being rewarded for his patience made me wonder if hed have the persona he had if hed experienced this rite of passage as a boy.
On cool October nights, in the glow of lamplight, the Z-Man and I drank tea and hot chocolate, talked philosophy and listened uneasily as, occasionally, a huge, ancient tree cracked in the distance and fell with a thunderous boom that echoed through the wilderness in the blackness of the night.
What a joy it was, watching this man of such stark contrasts discover simple pleasures long lost to him in the concrete jungle. That stay in the bush taught me a lot about human potential and the complexity of self, how we often tend to preconceive and label people based on appearance.
Those thirty-two days in the woods changed me. And I know they changed the Z- Man. It forced us to look inward and reflect, to look at each other simply as fellow men, to do what we do far too little of in the hustle and bustle of our lives - get to know the real person behind the protective veneer. The natural world does that; it forces you to focus inward on the real and essential.
I would need that grounding. I was about to leave the woods after a month without so much as a hot shower, carrying a suitcase filled with enough money to afford me any creature comfort.