Energy Is the Bottom Line

I walk through the woods on two feet of frozen snow, looking for signs of spring. The brook is rushing and seeps are appearing. There are raccoon tracks in the mud around the open water. I am hoping to find skunk cabbage poking through the detritus of winter, but it is still too early.

This is the hunger time. The easy prey, moles, mice, chipmunks, and squirrels are safe in their holes under the ice. Hawks and owls are visiting bird feeders. Raccoons hang out on peoples' decks. Energy is the bottom line. I follow coyote tracks. A pair has direct registered across an open field. One stepping in the other's print. They are headed for a bird feeder. There is no exploration in their path. They have no energy for curiosity. They have pups on the way. They are hungry.

I look at the trails of the three dogs I am walking. They are all over the place. They can afford to expend energy. They are well fed and live in a warm house. In fact, I am walking them just so that they will expend energy. Two of them even have their long coats cut short. Their lives are so different from their wild cousins. Their rituals are not dictated by survival.

I think about energy. Food. Oil. Water. The resources necessary for survival. I think about Maslow's hierarchy and how it is impossible to attend to anything beyond survival if the basic needs of food, shelter, and water are not met. I remember watching a woman at Shoney's All You Can Eat Buffet somewhere in North Carolina last week. She was a slight woman, dressed in her Sunday best. She sat alone, eating very slowly, savoring each bite. She kept going back to the buffet to fill her plate. I wondered if she had saved the seven dollars just for this buffet and was eating the only real meal she had had in a long time.

I hear on the radio that a gallon of milk costs eighty-five million dollars in Zimbabwe. Eighty-five million dollars. People mix non-dairy creamer with water and plant corn in the median strips along the highway. They eat dirt. Food is a political weapon. Energy is the bottom line. These are the hunger times.

My wife tells me I should write about happier things and I am drawn once more to the beauty of a winter snowfall and the solitude it brings.

Like the bear, I can sleep another day.