All in Good Time

By TAD BARTIMUS

A wild profusion of weeds grows over the tumbledown rock walls and barbed wire fences along the road I travel every day. Mostly I don't pay any attention to this undistinguished riot of green so prolific it has to be pruned by a county tractor.

But last night was different. An otherwise pesky cactus with sharp spines protruding from long, trailing tendrils was poised to explode into such extraordinary beauty I set my alarm clock to witness the spectacle.

I relish these rare summer nights when the cereus shows its secret.

The night-blooming cereus (Hylocereus undatus) produces flowers as big as dinner plates. Their ivory petals feel like wedding silk; their spicy scent makes a teetotaler drunk on sweetness. Almost at the same time, the blossoms -- mile upon mile of them -- burst forth simultaneously, as though they all hear a whistle signal "NOW!" They begin to reveal themselves after sundown. Their peak comes at midnight; by dawn they've faded. The phenomenon is finished.

I relish these rare summer nights when the cereus shows its secret. It occurs maybe three times a season, and only when Nature decides. The same thing happens with the flying fish. Around the ninth moon, thousands of shining silver streaks break the ocean's surface like guided missiles, hurling themselves toward the light.

In the desert, when the monsoon comes, frogs fling themselves from deep under the mud to swim and mate in puddles, croaking frogsong to the dark. Afterwards, they die. In deciduous tree country, the common maple shocks the onlooker with the single russet leaf that's appeared overnight. How can it be that winter is coming so soon? In Alaska, after practicing for weeks, geese suddenly get their act together, form perfect chevrons and turn south. An internal clock chimes.

Smelling the cereus, seeing the flying fish, hearing the frogs, holding the maple leaf, waving good-bye to migrating geese, I am reminded that, in the natural world, there is no concern about the coming zeros in the year 2000. There is no late or early, no behind or ahead. The rhythm of birth, death, dark, light, tide, moon – life forces which affect our brain's medulla and upper pons at the most primitive level – operate outside the bounds of daylight savings time.

I inherited a plaque that reads: "The hurrieder I go, the behinder I get." It's true. Humans create artificial time tables: we say we have to get up at a certain time, be at work at a certain time, complete a task by a certain time. But it's all invention to fill space. There's no law in nature which says "eat lunch between 11:45 a.m., and 12:15 p.m." Lions eat when they're hungry. Why can't we?

Humans tend to think if they can't see it, it doesn't exist. I can't see underneath the ocean so it's flat to me. If a tree falls in the forest and I don't hear it, then no, it doesn't make a sound. We are caught up in the manmade, the technical, the inauthentic. Close the windows and turn on the air conditioner. Crank up the stereo. Click on the TV. The more we customize our nests, the less we want to leave them. Too much trouble. We drift further away from the natural world from which our species sprang.

I had to make an effort to get up in the middle of the night, but once curiosity overcame sloth I felt rejuvenated watching a miracle that had nothing to do with humans. I hope I never forget to stop and smell the night-blooming cereus.

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