Observing outside

This was a class exercise where we were required to write sensory details. I got a little off topic about shrimp.

I'm standing on top of a bridge, on an asphalt path. I've got my foot hooked in the railing, even though I'm not sure why. It creates pressure in my other foot, and in a couple of seconds I'll have to shift to the other one. The process will repeat.

The water under the bridge is murky and brown. It's not usually so high, but it rained for almost three days straight, and now it's almost high enough to be considered a river. It'll go down in a few days, though. Back into a trickle.

There are birds in the trees. None of them sound quite the same. When I was younger I used to try and whistle at them, but I've never been very good at copying sounds, so it just sounded like plain old whistling. Sometimes I think the birds responded back, though I'm not sure if that wasn't just my imagination.

The sky is a high, cloudless blue. It's warmer than it should be for early April. Sometimes we get persistent snow as late as May, but this year I had to leave my coat behind. That's global warming for you I guess.

I've been thinking a bit about shrimp. I tried to take my dog with me, but I forgot that her fight or flight response is constantly active outside the house. And it's not really a fight or FLIGHT response, more of a fight. But I was thinking about how I see the world, and how she must see the world. I'm looking out over this river and the grass is green and the sky is blue and the forest is a dark muddle of brown, but to her most of this must just look grey. And that makes sense — animals at the top of the evolutionary food chain should be more evolved.

But what doesn't make sense is shrimp, or at least a certain kind of shrimp. There's a shrimp that has more cones in their eyes than a human does — I think seven as compared to our three? — so they can see far more colors than we can. Imagine that! A crustacean at the bottom of the food chain has evolutionarily better eyes. This muddle of brown could be full of colors that I can't even conceptualize, and a shrimp might be able to see it.

But then again, is it more evolutionarily beneficial to see more or less colors? I assume more, as camouflages work better if the colors match. But it could also be difficult to distinguish one riotous burst of color from another. Perhaps it is most efficient for us to be able to see just enough colors to differentiate animal from nature, but not so much that we get overwhelmed.

I stopped hooking my feet in the railing. I switched three or four times before deciding that it was stupid. Now I am leaning against the railing again, but my left is crossed over my right, and all my weight is on the right foot. There is a growing pressure in my knee and ankle, and I know I'll have to switch soon. Top of the evolutionary food chain indeed.