Looking Back

I thought about what article to post today, but instead, I am going to be mindful in a different way. 

On this dreary morning, as I was driving in to work, a rabbit ran in front of my car on the road to the Trust.  I haven't seen a rabbit in the wild in a long time.  Though some of the kids I work on trails with swear they have seen them, they have always alluded me.  There is something about these hop-a-long creatures that keep me looking for them.   Today when I say that furry brown rabbit sprint across in front of my car, It brought me back to my younger years going to Odiorne Point in NH and seeing thousands of bunnies hopping in and out of the underbrush that exists there. 

Upon my return to Maine, I couldn't wait to bring my kids there to have similar experiences.  Echoing voices in the bunkers, chasing rabbits, seeing baby lobsters by the rocks and having a picnic by the sea.  I brought my then young children there often, but things were vastly different.  Not all in bad ways, just different.  The bunkers were closed to the public, (probably a good thing!)  and the Seacoast Science Center, which was just beginning when I was in high school, is now a beautiful comprehensive science center.  The thing that bothered me though, was not once, ever did I see a rabbit.  I wondered what had happened to them all.  

I always find it funny that our lives change so gradually that sometimes we don't notice the subtle differences from day to day.  We don't notice the disappearing monarchs, or the fact that the snapping turtle that used to lay eggs every spring hasn't done so for a couple of years now... or that rabbits are no longer common place in places where there used to be so many.  Maybe because it happens over time.  Probably the same way that every now and again I catch myself in a mirror and am shocked not to find a teenager, but a middle aged woman with a family... when did that happen?

My memories of the wildlife and landscape that I played in is a strong memory that I can still smell, taste, and feel, if I close my eyes tight enough, were important enough to me to continue in this field and to want the same for the next few generations.

 As I handed out photo albums to the 5th graders at their graduation the other day of all the trips they had taken with Trust in our Children, the landscapes clear behind them, I hope that they will feel the same.  I hope that their thoughts and memories of this place will be strong enough that when they are my age, they won't ever wonder where the bunnies are... they will still see them on their way to work.