Moles

Photo: When a developer made a mole hill out of my forest in Anacortes, 2007.

When we moved to the farm we made vow to respect all the life forms that live here. We promised to never kill unnecessarily. I had ideals to make this a harmonious place, where everyone’s voice is kind and the landscape is verdant and free. We’ve reached some of this potential. But we’ve fallen short in reality too. This leads me to an important question: “Why do I dream of killing all the moles?”

We’ve just arrived back home from a long sojourn in Northern New Mexico. We planned a day to bask in the beauty, freedom and the creativity of the last nine days. When we got home there were only the mole hills. Everywhere. The one civilized stretch of lawn was mounded with dozens and dozens of Vesuvius like buttes, some a foot tall.

In this part of the northwest chasing the mole is a serious pursuit, one that takes up a whole aisle of the farm and feed store. There are bombs, poisons traps, vibrators and killing tongs. I’ve tried them all. I even had the guilty pleasure of hooking up the old Ford’s tail pipe to conduit and pumping their underground runways with gas. Nothing worked except the old guilt of not being so “PC”. Their bountiful destruction continued unabated. The trees had been dug up. The sacred fairy circle upended. Our sidewalk continually covered with slicks of mud and stones.

When we arrived home I found my $30.00 solar powered sonic vibrator stake had been buried by the creatures. Also, the steel tongued trap that was supposed to impale them was unsprung and surrounded by fine dirt combings. My beautiful yard appeared like the “great dig”, with excavations stretching around the corners of the house. All my ideals and peace had been excavated too. I’d done every thing I could do to control the uncontrollable. Then I was defeated by a humble, resilient pink snout rodent that has never even seen the sun.

I’ll admit that I had a tantrum. Only 24 hours earlier I had been writing the prayer of my life beneath desert spires. Now I was stomping on my brilliantly designed stake labeled: “Sonic Deluxe: Guaranteed to Drive the Moles Crazy.” I also yanked out the steel trap, which proceeded to snap on my hands. I threw it as far as I could into the hedge.

I was struck with this primal anger at just another circumstance that I could not control. We all face these. Despite all our expensive, obsessive, well planned efforts life has its own plans. Not all of these are comfortable or accommodating.

What is it about going so deep and then coming back to messes on the surface? I’d spent over a week in “The Land of Enchantment” with seven of the finest people you’d ever meet. One would think that gratitude would take top billing. But anger was there instead. It was only a mole, right?

We came home to find the same circumstances we left. Heather and I were bonded, deep and even closer. But all the other issues haunting us were still eating away at parts of our home. They were reaching their claws up from a dark place, upending the order we were trying to make. They are only moles, right?

As I was writing within the wide adobe horizon I made a vow. I promised to save my own shining life and to be compassionately honest. Ever since I moved here I’d believed the myth that I was the foundation beam that supported a whole household. Strong, stout and stoic. A real man. But I’ve been excavating a real life in the desert sands. And it’s not so pretty and contained like I thought. And many of the ways I act do not create happiness or freedom. The trap I’ve made to control my own life has sprung on my own hands.

I just want to write and paint and live in a home of kind words and soulful work. I want to be happy and sweat my prayers and live in this field like it was heaven. But the world has other plans. Like many others, I am in-between wanting to tighten control and just letting it all be as it is. Is there a middle way? I wonder how to do that? Do I just give in and let the moles destroy what I work on with so much effort? Do I go with “reality”, till up the lawn and let it go wild with flowers and mounds? Do I revisit the farm implement store and try another round of warfare? How does one fiercely protect their precious turf without becoming the product and producer of more violence in our world?

They are only moles, right?
Then why am I so upset by them?

Hard work will be challenged and disregarded. And that hurts. I don’t have the answers except to remember the prayers and the million ways to be grateful. Remember the ocean of islands and the desert blooming with unexpected rain. Remember my sweetheart, who traveled with me. Remember that there is a solid self both above and below the reach of all the excavators.

I am home now. The cabin roof leaked a little while we were gone. But the writing desk is full, flooded with new words and songs. This imperfect life is making us more than control or self made myths could ever manufacture.

Rick