Pandemic pilgrimages

We got a late-winter snow here in West Dundee in March 2020, not long after I had started working remotely and Illinois went into pandemic lockdown. This was the view that morning from my home office, a small room at the front of the house.

Late March around here is usually when we experience winter’s last gasp. While this late-season snowfall seemed to befit the coldness of our pandemic-induced isolation, I also saw something else in the view—a call to pause and appreciate winter’s loveliness.  

Two weeks into our shelter-in-place order, it was starting to sink in: freeing up the 90 minutes I spent commuting each weekday, as well as the cancellation of concerts, family visits, social events and all the other activities that comprised much of the busyness of our lives, meant I had a lot more time to spend outside in nature. As writer Kathryn Jones put it in a Covid-focused issue of the Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas (vol. 17), “Sheltering in place means I may not be able to wander in the world right now, but I can find wonder in my world.” Thus the regular pilgrimages Steve and I made to the creek crossing began.

Less than 10 minutes’ drive from our house, the crossing over Jelkes Creek near a spacious suburban subdivision would seem an unlikely place to savor the natural world. It’s a modest-sized creek, too large to jump across but not by much. Looking east from the crossing (the downstream view) above the creek’s steep south bank is a typical painstakingly manicured suburban lawn. On the other side is the opposite—a tangled, unruly mass of scrub trees, bushes, remains of fallen trees and, mostly, tall grasses. But if you look further downstream, you see a willow tree with angled branches overhanging the creek, the sky reflected in the water and the gentle sloping line of a distant ridge marking where, less than 1.5 miles away, the creek reaches its final destination and joins the Fox River. Here’s the view from a sunny winter’s day this January.

It’s an unassuming vista to be sure, but, as any nature observer knows, even modest bodies of water can yield visual delights and wildlife sightings.

Our practice was to park on the crossing and stay in the car with windows open or closed, depending on the weather. The car windshield and windows acted as visual shields, making it less likely the wildlife would see us. Equipped with the essentials—binoculars and patience—Steve and I parked there at least once or twice a week to gaze at the scene for 30 minutes or more, hoping some creatures would reveal themselves.

Over the months that we regularly visited the crossing last year, our sightings were many and some were quite exciting. They included a kingfisher diving into the creek head first to catch a fish, a beaver swimming under the crossing and continuing downstream, a mink scampering across the road in front of us, numerous songbirds flitting around or singing nearby, migrating sandhill cranes flying high overhead and what we think was a river otter swimming swiftly from one side of the creek to the other. Our most frequent sightings were of muskrats, which clearly had a den along the south bank. It was a rare day that we didn’t see one in the water, cruising along at a constant speed with its ratlike tail undulating back and forth like a snake. We saw them so often we named one of them Monty, at the suggestion of my friend Cristin’s older son, Connor.

On those days when Monty and the other critters didn’t appear, we found solace simply experiencing the scene. Observing the colors of vegetation gradually shift as the seasons moved from spring to summer to fall, listening to the water’s gentle, gurgling lullaby and watching objects transformed by the ever-changing light were more than enough. We were grateful to have the time to sit still and watch nature and life continue on and just be.

Pilgrimages are journeys to a sacred place. In the midst of the chaos and uncertainty of the pandemic and political upheaval, it felt healing to visit this same spot as often as we could. In the 2017 film Lady Bird, a wise educator told the main character that she must love her hometown of Sacramento because in describing it she paid attention to where she grew up. As Sister Sarah Joan asked Lady Bird, “Don’t you think maybe they are the same thing—love and attention?” We loved the creek crossing in all of its unassuming grandeur, and we were compelled to express our thanks by paying attention.

“Church Services Cancelled” by Chris Ellery
(Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas, vol. 17)

You have time to walk now
along the river
with a congregation of geese
unperturbed
by the drizzle and fog.