Have you ever seen a squirrel gallop? It’s a revelation. The piston-like motion of its head and hips and the swish of its tail blend into a single, flowing curve that waves parallel to the ground, enchantingly out of sync with the little beast’s ground speed.
At a dead run, squirrels are quantum: both entity and wave at the same time. It’s a practical demonstration of the beauty of nature, and a pretty accurate vision of what must have been going on in Einstein’s brain as he tried to unravel the secrets of light.
That hypnotic, endless wave of motion is a common sight in the American Northeast, and it’s the kind of thing that creates such a profound cultural disconnect between Europeans and Americans. Nature isn’t just bigger or taller in the new world, it’s deeper. Savage and entrancing in ways the average European isn’t geared to understand.
For bewildered Europeans, it can be a key to understanding their transatlantic cousins a little better.
America isn’t just Western Europe, but with fewer manners. It’s a place where exiting your domicile, walking into the woods to commune with actual woodland creatures is an everyday reality. Snow White isn’t a whimsical myth here, she’s the neighbourhood crazy lady having a sing with backyard critters.
Europe is not without its nature of course. Many European capitals boast enormous parks and nature islands. There are reserves and nature and stuff. However, sadly, after a few thousand years of aggressive civilizing, the nature most people are exposed to daily has lost its bite.
Not in the United States. Here, nature is still worthy of respect. Not the civilized respect of the enlightened bourgeoisie that decided it’s time to make sure the pretty trees don’t go extinct. The respect of the lost human who doesn’t want to be eaten by the wolves.
Part of the problem is that the words we’re using don’t depict the same reality. The average European forest is maintained, patrolled, catalogued, and approved of by a couple of government agencies. While in theory the same applies to North American forests, the government agencies promise that they will likely find your body within the season, to ship to your loved ones.
Nature in the new world is still savage. A living, hungry thing that encroaches on the comfortable neighbourhoods of American suburbia. Courtesy of the massive scope of the continent, less than half an hour’s walk from the comfort of your living room you can find yourself completely isolated from civilization, trees all around, no visible roads, no sound but what you hope are not a pack of wolves rolling dice to see who gets first bite.
Of course as you try not to listen to your instinct to run, it’s pitch black at 6pm and you can see your breath is showing because you’re far from any meaningful bodies of water that could extend the mercy of night time heat release.
And naturally your cell phone stopped working ten minutes ago because this is a big country and cell phone towers don’t do so well through metric tonnes of vegetation. The joke about the wolves playing dice? You start to regret thinking it.
There is a powerful psychological component to having to share your land with nature that doesn’t bend the knee, and its consequences are very real. The loud voices and louder trucks, the guns, and the cowboy myths start making a little more sense.
The balance of it all is that it’s not just primal terror and insecurity. Magic has yet to leave these woods.
Quantum squirrels zoom across the paths you walk, and the way light plays through canopy and trunks often creates portals to worlds that weren’t just invented by fantasy novels, they were just forgotten in the rush to tame Western European lands.
That tree split by lightning, still hasn’t surrendered to gravity and still looks like the screaming maw of a dragon. The way depth and shadow make a ditch look like it could be an entryway to a Narnia with fewer Santa references and more pagan sacrifice. The way deer stare at you for a few minutes, finishing their chew before bolting off, not afraid but indignant they have to share the space with your primate stench.
This is a place that is both a location and a setting, where you are encouraged to not feel silly for that delicious shiver that just reminded you that you have a spine. And that maybe an all-terrain vehicle isn’t just a stupid compensation mechanism after all.
There is much to say for civilization. Indoor space and central heating are nice. Knowing where your next meal comes from, while it lacks in heroism, is great. High speed internet and next-day deliveries? Chef’s kiss.
However, there is something memorable in having to hide in the basement when a storm is rocking your house. It makes you appreciate the sunlight that much more when you see it again. There is a special satisfaction when the end of a long walk isn’t just cardio well done, but the ending of an adventure through mystical forests full of goblins and dice-playing wolves.
And there is much to appreciate, for a jaded Western European, in the places where magic is still alive and well in the world. It doesn’t just make you appreciate high speed internet that much more when you get it again, it makes you feel less silly for those beautiful shadows in your heart.