There are many things we encounter on any given day that we don’t give much thought to. Some are too huge for our minds to wrestle with, and others seem too trivial. We have varying degrees of curiosity. I waste too much time trying to figure out why people step off the curb into a crosswalk obviously feeling the legal right on their side but not bothering to notice that the car parked right up to the crosswalk blocks the driver’s view of the pedestrian. I always slow and scan left and right but often a pedestrian hops right out in front of me. The law is on their side, but I don’t think they’ll win the physical battle so perhaps waiting to make eye contact with the driver is a better idea. Nova Scotia is filled with crosswalks, and most drivers are on the alert, so perhaps I’ll not bother to think of that again. I am puzzled as to why we give animals so little credit for intelligence when if push comes to shove, they have the greater wisdom. For example, when I was in Dawson City where the ravens are the size of school buses (an exaggeration, in case you were wondering), I watched a single raven hop up and down on a piece of plywood covering the opening of a 45-gallon drum of garbage. He wasn’t having any luck, so he squawked a few times and one of his pals flew over and the two of them jumped up and down on the edge of the plywood. Again, no success, so they both squawked and three more ravens plunked down on top of the plywood, and they bounced in unison and were able to flip the plywood off the can and check out the contents for a few snacks. Teamwork. Smart. The memory of that still makes me smile. I like to imagine the chatter between them – “Hey, Bob! Give me a hand!”
I don’t really know the details of how an airplane is able to fly. I know it has something to do with the pressure difference between the top and bottom of the wing, but I just trust that the airplane will get me to where I am going and I don’t really need to know the science of it. The fact there are 100 million galaxies visible with our current telescopes causes my brain to overload. I realize I am about as significant as a dust mite in the grand scheme of the universe, but I still think I should eat my vegetables. I don’t know why some nights I have ridiculous dreams that make no sense and other nights my sleep is interrupted by fear, but I have little control over either of those things, so I switch off my search for answers.
Entries on my list of curious things are why do we hiccup, why does our hair turn grey, how does the hard shell get onto the hen’s egg before it is laid. These questions are easily answered – the diaphragm gets irritated and spasms involuntarily; melanocyte stem cells in hair follicles provide for hair colour and gradually disappear as we age; the soft shell-less egg travels toward the exit, spending about twenty hours of the total twenty-six hours of production in a cloud of calcium carbonate where the shell is laid on. I didn’t know that invasive species of earthworms in North America comprise 33% of the existing earthworm population, with those invasive types making their way from Europe and Asia in the ballast of ships and in the roots of plants being transported. But now that I know, I think I can strike that off my list of things to ponder.
One might deem the questions another is curious about to be insignificant, but I’m curious about what others are curious about, if that makes any sense. When children master their first question – “whaazat” they often move on to “why” and “how”. By the time we reach adulthood, many of us stopping asking questions. I remember my daughters asking lots of questions for which I had little if any answers. Why is the grass green and the sky blue? Does it hurt to have a baby? I had a definitive answer for that one. Why are some people mean, and others are kind? Why do I have to go to bed? Why are spiders scary?
I often wonder why it is so easy to remember where we messed up in life and so easy to forget when we did something well. Why is it hard to find a half-hour for exercises to increase strength and mobility and so easy to knit for hours on end. Why does summer go so quickly and winter meanders. In the end, “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing,” said Socrates. So, I’ll quit worrying about the answers I do not have and knit just a few more rows.
wendistewart@live.ca
