I was eight the summer I captured a California alligator lizard. Luxuriating in sun struck open spaces; I thought the lizards with their designer scales were meant for children’s admiration, the sort that could only happen between one’s fingers. It turned out however, that they were faster than my grasp and their tails, a perfect handle for capture, had an annoying habit of dislodging and feigning independent thought. To this day I can’t examine a lizard without a queasy imagining of its flailing tail between my fingers. I kept trying to capture one though, practicing until my reflexes were at reptile speed. Then one heated afternoon I struck and planted my chubby palm over a lizard’s body, pinning it to its granite roost in my grandparent’s backyard.
Curling my fingers around its cool body and admiring my prize, I had every intention of letting it go, but I needed a moment to look. She examined me back with a strangely intense stare. I was trying to get inside her head, imagining her thoughts as I rubbed the scales between her eyes with my index finger. I was still working on a human-lizard mind-meld when the small reptile stretched her rigid mouth into an alarmingly wide gape and then ratcheted the opening closed on my finger.
My grandfather had watched my quest with interest, but hadn’t said a word, not even when I finally caught one and he happened to be there to see. I squealed and swung my hand with increasing force until the vicious beast lost its grasp and was flung across the yard. Finally, my Grandfather spoke and all he had to say was, “Those bite, you know.” The lizard slapped against the redwood fence, righted herself and skittered away no worse for wear. In fact, examining my finger, I thought she had fared better than me in the encounter. She had, but I had gained far more than a new found respect for alligator lizards.
My grandfather could have admonished me, explaining that wildlife was meant to be admired, not molested. He could have sent me inside to watch cartoons, movies on our amazing new Z TV or to play games on my Texas Instruments computer. Instead he watched me connect, discover and take action. He witnessed my lesson on how seemingly innocent moments can have repercussions if you don’t think them all the way through. He left me alone to learn that anyone can survive if they keep their head, even in the event of a vicious reptile attack. I had discovered that if you look closer you can recognize predators before you are prey. I’m sure he didn’t know it, but someday these lessons would likely save my life.
Staying safe was only one facet of the lesson plan. I also learned to admire the creepy magic of lizard tails, a magic that I still don’t understand and frankly don’t want to comprehend. Magic is better. Magic means creativity, possibilities and room for exploration. That which remains unexplained is for writers and dreamers, for scientists and inventors.
We can tell children to recycle. We can teach them to ride share and leave no trace, but we don’t need to. They hear it. They’ve heard it. They understand, they are doing it and now they are tuning us out. A million bottles separated from the trash and a thousand bike rides won’t save the Earth. Want to get a child to imagine a world where dinosaurs run rampant, then to fear one where lizards cease to exist? Then give them the space and freedom to catch alligator lizards. Give them the room to figure out their own ways to save the world. Simply put, just get them outside. Nature will give them the rest.
Want to find some ways to get children outside? Check out the Children & Nature Network. Live in Riverside or San Bernardino Counties? Join our Girl Scout Council. We’re on a mission to find better ways to help. I’m on mission. Why not? It’s what I do, right?
I think they finally just got sick of me pestering them with submission after submission. I’m not above a pity publication! Enjoy!
A resemblance?
