Freshening Up

I recently heard nature writer - poet Diane Ackerman say "The more familiar something becomes the less attention we pay to it." I imagine most of us can agree to that statement. It seems like a no-brainer, perhaps bordering on trite. But it is a sweeping summary of a characteristic that has probably been a significant part of animal nature from earliest times. After all the familiar is almost by definition nonthreatening. If danger is anywhere around it must be hidden in the unfamiliar. Thus safety requires that the unfamiliar, the new, is where we  should focus our attention.

The bluejays that come to the feeder on our deck are feisty birds. They don't fly away when other birds come to the feeder. They don't fly away if the neighbors cat stalks by.  But they are so attuned to the unknown  that they fly off anytime they catch a glimpse of me moving around the kitchen. It will be interesting to see if I become familiar enough over time that I drop out of their attention span.

An odd exception to the idea that animals fear the unfamiliar is found in the vertebrate animals in the Galapagos Islands. The animals of the Galapagos show no fear of human intruders. I can recall spotting a vermilion flycatcher in a path-side tree as I walked along with a tour group there. A friend lifted his camera and began adjusting the telephoto lens. "I lost it. Where did it go?" he asked seconds later. He didn't understand why our group was laughing until he moved back from the viewfinder and saw the bird blithely perching on the end of his lens. Apparently the animals of the Galapagos Islands have lived without threatening neighbors for so long that they have lost all fear whether of the familiar or the new.

If we get so familiar with some piece of our natural surroundings that we don't pay it much attention, it may take on the aspect of a familiar friend. Most of us will find some comfort in an old familiar relationship. But at the same time we may be losing more than we gain because we've foregone some of our original sense of awe, and that engenders a sense of respect.

One way of getting closer to the earliest pleasure we found in a relationship is to freshen it up in much the same way councilors recommend freshening up a marriage that's running in a routine that's boringly familiar. Take a bit of extra time to scrutinize your subject just as you did on first acquaintance. Look for little physical or behavioral characteristics that you might have missed before. Read about your subject. Learning something new about a person can create a bit of excitement and an increased appreciation. It can do the same for your old familiars in the natural world. There's no need to have stale relationships even if they do provide a bit of comfort.