CZ feeding a Queen butterfly, 2007
In honor of the SAT II Biology test that CZ took yesterday, here is a quote from Anne Fadiman's essay, "Collecting Nature," from At Large and Small:
"Her conception of nature was incorrigibly romantic; she was painfully affected by beauty; she was a compulsive arranger; she focused on small details--the precise curve of a mourning cloak's forewing, the exact shade of the red spot on a zebra swallowtail's hindwing--rather than on larger and more important questions of behavior and habitat."
Thus Ms. Fadiman, who was describing herself as a child, became a writer and not a biologist.
That quote may apply more to me than to CZ, who shows few signs of being a compulsive arranger, but I think we're both delighted that she can now leave off test prep and go back to learning in a way that lends itself to enjoyment. We are perhaps slightly appreciative of the impetus the test gave her to master the basics of the subject, but crammed in this way over two months, they are mostly devoid of beauty.
We have raised butterflies, but we have spent more time birding, and this quote touches not only on the appeal of watching birds, but also on the appeal of keeping a notebook of birding lists (when she started she could barely write) or a life list on a site such as eBird, sponsored by Cornell's Lab of Ornithology. CZ accumulated over 150 birds on her list before the spring concert season and her shoulder injury overwhelmed any desire to crane her neck looking for warblers.
Instead, yesterday afternoon, CZ watched a documentary on Jacqueline du Pre' and then spent three hours practicing violin. The sounds coming from her room were not unlike those of a bird or butterfly set free. But in the evening, she picked up The Physiology Coloring Book, took out a set of pencils, and colored in the title. "See? These are the colors of the letters for me," she explained. Then she started reading and coloring the text--for fun.
The last butterfly of 2007, a Monarch, going free in Riverside Park
*I wrote this title thinking I had heard the phrase somewhere before, so I looked it up. Not too suprisingly, it was the name of a book on painting.
2 comments:
Yay, the exam is over! I'm sure it feels oh so good to C.Z. to have that behind her and to be able to move on to more naturally enjoyable pursuits!
Very nice quote, Laura. It reminded me of the luxury of stepping back from the rush of life to enjoy the beauty of each intricate detail that nature presents everyday.
Glad you liked the quote, Silvana. I thought that, too. It positively aggravates me that when you go to school, you have to rush through so many facts so quickly that you get mental indigestion. It's not that I'd prefer to learn fewer things so much as that I like to make sure I've seen them from every angle before moving on to the next batch. Simply stuffing them for a test doesn't do nature justice, I think.
But I also smiled at the slightly self-mocking nature of Anne Fadiman's quote. This is exactly what a birder does--focus on the beauty to the exclusion of science. And so do most children, because the beauty is what generates wonder and motivation to continue. As you move up the educational ladder, science seems to pooh pooh this simple sort of appreciation because it's not clinically controlled, but I would hope that the best scientists never quite leave it behind.
Post a Comment