Watermarks Hiding Precious Pennies by Fayth Hill

As a small child Annie Dillard describes herself as having been driven by a curious compulsion to hide pennies and draw "huge arrows leading up to [them] from both directions" (16). They were small tokens with little monetary value--mere pennies, but each one offered the "first lucky passer-by" (16) an opportunity to become alert, awake, and alive for the hunt. But what could one possibly do with a single penny? It is true that not much could be purchased with a penny, but Dillard found that the excitement of discovery held a genuine wealth that could be enjoyed, could be "spent," time and time again. Although Dillard insists that she has never been seized by the childhood compulsion since, she is, even as an adult, consumed with playing hide and seek.

As Dillard's childhood has succumbed to growth her strategic methods have matured and become more challenging to the player. She no longer places shiny copperheads in sidewalk gaps nor draws large arrows with colored chalk to direct the participant's path. Instead, Dillard seeks to disguise "precious pennies" in something much bigger, say, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and boldly claims, "I am the arrow," (15) "the instrument of the hunt itself" (14). Dillard conceals her found treasures among long lists and trailing thoughts that are as endlessly winding as Tinker Creek itself. And the discoveries the reader finds has no monetary value at all, yet they are priceless. They are spiritual awakenings that have been cast randomly by a generous, unseen hand. Theirs is the evidence of the divine within: the hollowness of the frog's skin, the illumination of the tree, the bondage of the Polyphemus moth, and the old, dry snakeskin. Theirs is the case of the ordinary camouflaging extraordinary truths. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is Dillard's invitation for those who will come and play the game. It is the opportunity for the reader to look through the macro to see the micro; it is the gift of unitive experiences--the chance to see the Master within the masterpiece. And at the end of the hunt the player can enjoy, can spend, time and time again the excitement of discovering that, as Kazantzakis says in The Last Temptation of Christ, "everything has two meanings, one manifest, one hidden" (150).

Beneath the surface, just beyond the obvious, is the camouflaged. There a small green frog sits hidden "exactly half in and half out of the water," (7) but Dillard sees him. As she kneels for a closer look, the frog's skin suddenly begins to crumple, sag, and fail. His wide, dull eyes empty; the sight is sucked. He is a victim--the prey of a giant water bug, and he is dead. Failure to obligate himself, to commit to land or creek, to just sit half in and half out of the water, has caused the frog's demise. The giant water bug came and found him "lukewarm" indeed, and suddenly his spirit "vanished from his eyes as if snuffed" (7). For that one moment everything became dark, became "drained of its light as if sucked" (12). Caught in the moment of witnessing the tragedy, Dillard is breathless and light.

Beams of light are energies that fill completely; they are one of life's all-or-nothing events. Light bends, winds, reflects, illuminates, ignites, and fires "leaving not one unfilled spot" (31). The tree "with lights in it" (35) appears aflame as it beams forward and strikes Dillard, leaving her "utterly focused, utterly dreamed," (36) utterly filled, and utterly seen. At that moment, it is as if Dillard is able to transcend the boundaries of time and be both side-by-side with Moses and captured by the wondrous blaze. While Moses stands barefoot on holy ground, Dillard is pressed upward by a grass that is "wholly fire" (36). The use of homonyms projects a supernatural light into the backyard cedar. The divine light has forced itself through the camouflaging leaves striking Dillard, and she is "knocked breathless by a powerful glance" (36). Dillard lives for the vision of the tree with lights in it and becomes determined to put herself "in the path of its beam... to hone and spread [the] spirit... to sail on solar winds" (35) of blessed, expansive freedom.

Like the unrestrained first stretch of a newborn's arms as he exits the womb, Dillard rushes out to Tinker Creek--the place that bore her soul's freedom. She is alive and breathing with the mainsail of her soul. With a span of six inches, the Polyphemus moth's "enormous wings are velvetted in a rich, warm brown, and edged in bands of blue and pink... a fragility unfurled to strength" (61). He too is rigged and ready to sail upon the wind's waves, rest in its lulls, and enjoy the expansiveness of the sky. But the moth cannot fly; he is held captive by circumstance. The moth finds himself imprisoned within the glass walls of a Mason jar by Dillard's teacher and a classroom of curious students. Tragically, without the freedom to spread, his wings stiffen and dry permanently. As an act of compassion, or an act of disgust, someone pardons the Polyphemus moth, and he is set free. From the playground Dillard watches as the moth slowly "crawls down the driveway hunched... on six furred feet forever" (63). Some call this pathetic act freedom, but freedom does not liberate if it cannot be exercised. The moth is a "monster in a Mason jar" (62). It is as though the newly-hatched moth, unable to stretch its wings, still breathes from within the glass womb.

An aquarium with a broken glass sits in the woods next to the quarry. Something escaped. Beside the two-by-five glassy universe lies an old, dry snakeskin. Something escaped twice. Dillard looks at the exhibit and labels it "circumstantial evidence of a wild scene, as though a snake had burst through the broken side of the aquarium, burst through his ugly old skin, and disappeared... in a rush of freedom" (73). Dillard tried to piece together the evidence. Nature, like the snake, goes through an annual process of molting. It sheds its harvest colors of fall and winter's dandruff in preparation for spring's blossoms and green leaves. Dillard struggles to untie the coiled, repetitious knot, but straightening its path proves to be impossible. The never-ending loops of dead, dry skin, Dillard discovers, are as contagious as nature itself. Neither the seasons not the snakeskin offer Dillard a defense as to how or why they exist, only that they do. It is up to the observant juror to see the truths that the evidence may conceal.

"They say of nature that it conceals... and they say of vision that it is a deliberate gift" (Dillard 8). The frog's skin, the tree with lights in it, the crippled moth, and the old snakeskin are the pennies Dillard hides along the banks of Tinker Creek. If the player has been given the deliberate gift he is truly competitive. "The secret of seeing is," Dillard "the pearl of great price" (35). The frog's skin, the tree, the moth, and the snakeskin cannot be sought; they can only be discovered. Their value is not monetary, and their wealth cannot buy a thing. Dillard understands that the truths within the discoveries can only be spent in the mind, in the heart, in the soul, or "on the board, so to speak" (14). It is a game--a game of passive or active living. The rules require that an individual possess certain qualities: The player must be wholly committed, visible, available, not bound by circumstance but continuously free to move in any and all directions for the sport of the hunt. It is a game of great skill and chance. Although Dillard claims that, since childhood, she has never been seized by the curious compulsion to hide pennies, she readily admits, "It is [her] leisure as well as [her] work, a game" (14). Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is an invitation to play along, and Annie Dillard wants the reader to accept the risk of getting stuck on the board "for the pleasure of being so purely played" (218).

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