east west

the nefarious undertoad

when i was young, my mom told me there was a bobcat in our woods and that he sounded like a woman crying. so, at the age of eight, i decided that the woods were dangerous and not a place for me. my fort making days were over.
since then, i tried to make amends with my fear of the woods and darkness.....it always came back to this nefarious bobcat which i had never even seen or heard. i just knew that it existed and would absolutely kill me if encountered. so, i guess it was the fear of an idea.
yesterday peter & i wanted to see some winter snow, so we drove up to larch mountain. we four-wheeled it as far as we could go without sliding into a ditch. on our way back something no bigger than a large dinner plate ran across the road. not quite a cat. not quite a dog. peter said it was a bobcat - we stopped in the road and watched it in the woods. it also stopped and watched us in the jeep. this little thing was what i had been afraid of for 15 years - the idea of this animal had kept me out of the woods and had made most of my experiences there terrifying.
it was so small.

posted by jessica @ 11:20 AM