Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

The narrator recalls memories and research related to visual observation. She opens with her childhood pastime of hiding pennies in sidewalk cracks or next to a sycamore tree for passersby to discover. She suggests that the world is filled with pennies—hidden treasures to discover by observation. Birds, fish, and deer disappear in a flash when watched. She remembers approaching an Osage orange tree and being startled by 100 blackbirds ascending from the branches. As she moved around the tree, she couldn’t see any more birds, but hundreds more flew away.

Vision is often limited by what people expect to see. The narrator visits the creek, always looking, but she rarely sees the tiny secrets of nature that are so well-concealed. Once, her friends spotted a bullfrog and attempted to point it out to the narrator. She was unable to see it for several minutes; her expectation of what it should look like inhibited her from recognizing it. She notes that humans can only see a small portion of the visible world; their senses limit their capabilities. Both too much darkness and too much light can render the viewer blind. One summer evening, the narrator stayed too long at the creek, and the shadows consumed the landscape. As she tried to find her way back, every sound felt more sinister. She saw the shadowy outlines of animals in the darkness. When she reached home, she was shivering and astounded.

The narrator describes how the clouds in the Virginia mountains play tricks. Polarized light enables clouds to reflect on the surface of water while the clouds hide behind mountains. These same clouds inhibit her view of the Perseid meteor shower in August. As she stares into Tinker Creek, noticing snails and her own reflection, she grows dizzy. Each time she becomes absorbed in seeing and observing, she loses her balance.

She details stories from the book Space and Sight by Marius von Senden. As Western doctors began to perform cataract operations, they carefully noted their patients’ experiences. When these individuals gained sight, they were overwhelmed. Everything seemed like patches of colors; rather than indications of shape and depth, shadows were merely blotches of darkness. Many patients opted to stop using their eyes. Others embraced it. A little girl who underwent the surgery went out into the garden and saw a tree. Unable to recognize what it was by sight, she placed her hands on its trunk and knew immediately. She called it “the tree with the lights in it,” referring to the sun streaming through the leaves (31).

The narrator tries to recapture the wonder of an infant—to see the world with fresh vision—but she cannot unsee the world. She realizes that while there are beautiful secrets to discover in the natural world, seeking them will not make them appear. Instead, quiet and patient observation reveal them.

It is now February, and the narrator’s community is fixated on the topic of starlings. A man named Eugene Schieffelin first introduced this species to the Americas as part of a project to import all the birds referenced in William Shakespeare’s works. A few years ago, Radford, Virginia, had so many starlings that they engaged the help of the Wildlife Bureau. The plan was to spray the birds with a detergent foam that would cling to their feathers and cause them to die of exposure to the cold. The attempt was unsuccessful.

The narrator feels that she comes alive in winter. She spends her time indoors reading and writing, and she tramps to the creek each day. One evening, she marches to the top of a hill, where a pile of burned books are all that remain after a house fire. There, she watches the sun set and the starlings go to roost. Once they alight in the trees, she can no longer see them.

The narrator can feel the snow on its way. Local folklore suggests that it will be a hard winter, although she recognizes that this is often the prediction. The narrator fills her days with books, worried that she will run out of material to read. She enjoys reading the newspaper and noticing how the same stories appear repeatedly. The snow comes, further deepening the distinction between light and dark. She watches as a coot visits a pool by the creek over and over. At first, the narrator conceals herself to avoiding being spotted. She soon learns that the bird is uninterested in her presence, and she approaches. She considers killing it. Instead, she looks around and considers how winter has altered Tinker Creek. The frogs are hiding in mud, and the water snakes are hibernating.

While walking in the woods, she notices signs of warning. She realizes that the signs indicate that the path is used for motorbikes. The narrator then walks home and explores the nature that lives there, such as her goldfish, Ellery Channing, and the various spiders she leaves to do as they please. The wind howls around the house.

Having learned to recognize praying mantis egg cases, the narrator now sees them everywhere. Each case contains anywhere from 125 to 300 eggs. The mating habits of adult praying mantises are well-known. Before procreating, the female bites off the head of the male. While the male’s body mechanically fulfills the motions, the female continues to eat him. During another February, the narrator watched a mantis lay her egg sac. She visited the spot each day in the hopes of watching the babies hatch. One day in early June—just as it was time for tiny praying mantises to emerge—a tractor cleared the spot where the sac rested. Today, she clips off a few branches with praying mantis egg cases and carries them home.

She recalls being in school in January when a friend brought the cocoon of a Polyphemus moth into the classroom. The children passed the cocoon around, and their warm hands caused the moth to emerge prematurely. The teacher let it outside during recess, and the narrator watched as it lumbered along the sidewalk, its wings stuck to the side of its body. Now, as she looks at the egg case in its glass, her hand casts a shadow. She notes how shadows give meaning to light.

The lives of insects are riddled with cruelty. They perform their brutal and mysterious acts in broad daylight. The narrator asserts that nature is reckless and wasteful; it will try anything, no matter how gruesome. She also claims that nature is unintelligent at times, noting how dragonflies dip their abdomens into liquid to see if it is water, often sticking in pools of tar.

One night, the narrator dresses warmly and visits the creek. She likes thinking about how the creek is always changing, never the same from one minute to the next. When she arrives, the creek has been overtaken by shadow.

On a sunny February day, the narrator finds a snakeskin. As she carries it home, chunks of it fall off. She examines it and realizes that it is tied into a knot. Unable to determine where the knot starts, she realizes that it forms a perfect loop.

She then turns her attention to the seasons. She wonders whether the first man on Earth recognized the way the world moves in cycles. Early humans who discovered seasons unlocked vital information.