the dharma blog

“Develop your locality. Get in your local color.”
– Jack London

It was late in the day in early March. The sky was gray, the river was black, the banks were brown. He was sitting by the river drinking coffee. He had a little fire of twigs and brush that would extinguish in minutes if he quit throwing more sticks on it.

He heard someone coming and a moment later a girl appeared through the brush 20 feet down the bank. A girl, he thought. And corrected himself, Well, a young woman anyhow. He saw her start when she saw him, but she recovered and kept walking toward him and said Hey, how’s it going?

Good. How about you?

Good. How’s the fishing?

Pretty good.

They’re down deep aren’t they.

Seem to be. It doesn’t look like you’re fishing though.

No, just out looking around.

How’d you know they’re down deep?

I’ve been studying the river a little.

Oh, okay. He noticed she wasn’t making any move to start walking again. In fact she was no longer looking at him but at something in the bushes behind him.

She turned back to him. Got any more coffee?

I do, but I’m sorry, I don’t have another cup.

Here, I just finished my water, can you put some in here? She held a Nalgene water bottle out toward him.

Yeah, sure. He took it and poured the last of his coffee into the bottle. He handed it back to her. She took it and drank from it.

Thanks, that’s great.

Yeah, on a cold day like this.

She was looking into the river now, he followed her gaze and saw a large sucker slowly swimming up the river in front of them.

Do you know suckers basically spawn in orgies? There’s always at least two males present.

He looked back at her and then looked back at the fish. No, I didn’t know that.

Do you mind if I sit by the fire for a minute. It’s getting pretty chilly.

Sure. Kind of a damp day too.

She stepped around the fire and sat down near it on the other side.

After they sat for a while he asked her if she ever fished and she said sometimes but she mostly just liked getting out to see everything. Then he thought that he’d rarely had a fisherman stop and have coffee with him. To that she said it seemed disrespectful to her, Doesn’t it seem like it to you, and he told her he never took offense and she said No, disrespectful to nature.

What do you mean by that, he asked.

Well all these fishermen come out here and talk about interacting with nature and they take pictures of the birds and the fish and the wildlife and God how they talk about the bugs. But you’re out here too, aren’t you? Everyone of us out on the river is part of the whole ecosystem. When you just ignore someone it means you think you know what’s important here and that’s just disrespectful.

Well, that’s a good point.

She had risen to a bit of a pitch by the end of her speech and when she was done she locked her eyes on a rock on the far side of the river and drank from her coffee. Again he followed her gaze and saw nothing on the rock and then a red squirrel jumped up on it and ate something looking across the river at her.

I’m Jake, he said.

She smiled. I’m Susan.