Birds of the air

I've been contemplating birds lately. When my hubby placed a bird feeder outside of our kitchen window where we eat, I at first thought it was a bad idea. Because there are a bank of windows, I thought our movements would keep the birds away. But apparently we aren't as frightening as I supposed and the brown sparrows, black-capped chick-a-dees and garden variety finches that frequent the columnar breakfast bar seem undeterred by our paper reading or breakfast eating. The startling red of the cardinal surprises me sometimes. And the raucous blue jays who really are too big for the feeder, but muscle their way in anyway, are the ones that start the precarious thing swaying in the breeze. A few weeks ago the feeder was suddenly empty and we wondered what happened. It was then we saw a hawk on the branches outside the other window. He was rather large, but beautiful in his plumage as he looked left and right for the feast that had been there not five minutes before. He flew off, looking I'm sure for easier prey, but it was astonishing to see him so close to the window as we observed him.

We had a visit from 3 wild turkeys the other Saturday. They strutted through the ivy in the back of our yard and flew over the fences which separate one domain from another. I was so excited I ran out the back door with a camera only to discover they were directly in the line of the sun and all my pictures showed lots of washed out something or others. I loved them as well, watching them pump their neck and heads as they grandly walked from place to place. They didn't gobble. At least I didn't hear them. The only sound was their feathers rustling and their feet shuffling through the underbrush. I really hadn't realized how big they were until one, trying to decide whether to fly over the fence or simply walk back where it came from came right towards me. I think my squeal startled him as much as me and he bustled off in a flurry of wings and ungainly feet.

But the birds that, for some reason have had the most impact for me were the pelicans. I really never analyzed why these birds get to me the way they do. They are ungainly on land, waddling about with their overlarge bills clacking. But in flight and on the water they are graceful and elegant. When I watched the movie, Jurassic Park, at the end as the helicopter swept away the survivors, Dr. Grant looks over the ocean and sees a flock of pelicans majestically flying over the water and John Williams music sweeps to a crescendo reminding us that birds are the dinosaurs of our time. They look almost reptilian when observed close up. But that beautiful music swept me away with their flight as I watched (and subsequent times thereafter). I saw pelicans for the first time in person when I was in California during a writer's conference. We went to a small place in Malibu for dinner one night and crossed the Pacific Coastal Highway to get to the ocean. As we stood there, watching the waves meander in, watching the light mellow over the Pacific, a flock flew low over the water. It was just breath-taking. They soared so effortlessly. They are large birds, but in flight they dance on the wind as if they weighed no more than one of their feathers.

Just recently I was in South Carolina. I was there on vacation, but initially it was hard to relax. My siblings and I went to the beach on the second day we were there. I am not a beach person and probably never will be. But the wind was blowing gently, it was warm and I was with people who love me no matter what (a comfort I don't always have). As we walked along the sand, two of us dressed for the warm weather, two of us looking as though we belonged in the cooler regions, I looked over to the horizon. I could see two pelicans bobbing gently along on the tide. Later we watched as they dove headlong into the waves to catch their lunch. I was so filled with the wonder of the place then, of the love for my family, of the good graces of the world around me, I cried. Not great sobbing gulps, but tears nonetheless. I think the tears were of the joy at being in the world, of being able to be away from the things that so often make me tired and sad, of being able to thank God for the amazing blessing I have in my life.

And all because of some birds.

The Spring Inside

Inside of me there is Spring.
The wind is howling and threatening
To wipe the new buds off the trees.
But inside, the daffodils are blooming
And the hyacinths are nodding their
Many bloomed bodies
And the dogwoods are unfurling
While soaking up the sun.

It's supposed to snow and rain tomorrow
In late March no less, snow.
But inside of me the sun is warming
My innards like a lizard n a rock
And the perennials are poking up
Through the moist soil for a peek at the world
They haven't seen since last Spring.

My family has brought Spring to me.
By being there and listening and laughing
And not judging or criticizing or berating.
But just being there to feed the soul like
The Spring sun, which is residing inside me
This day.

In Love

It's the first day of Spring today. Time when a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of...baseball or March Madness. But it is during Spring that I most think of romantic love and all that it encompasses. I don't know why this is. Something about the sap running through the trees probably (and yes, I meant the pun). But always, always I think of love and it's permutations. What it is and what it can be. What the real and the imagined is like.

I have always thought that there must be something to the stuff of movies. How could that wonderful thing of love portrayed in endless movies, only exist there? It must be real, right? The Rosie O'Donnell movie line I most remember from Sleepless in Seattle is, when speaking to Meg Ryan about what love means to Meg she says: "you want to be in love in a movie." Which I thought a priceless line as that is exactly what was going on in the movie. But it's true, also. I've always wanted to be in love, like in the movies. And fortunately or unfortunately, I've wished this for my daughter as well. I want her to have fireworks and excitement, but I also want her to have something truer than a Saturday night, too. Something stable and lasting but romantic, too. The fairy tale. But with her responsible for her end of the bargain too. Not just something that falls into her lap and she has no input. But something to hold onto in the dark watches of the night.

And so love and Spring are on my mind today. And it's raining. I wonder what that means?

Hurry Up, I'm Waiting

I’m impatient
For the world to be going on
For the phone to ring when they say it should
For the clock to move, when it seems to stall

I’m impatient for the doctor in the waiting room
The dentist in the waiting room
And the little Asian lady
To be done with the nails in front of me
“How long could it possibly take?”

The computer is so slow
The laptop even slower
The cell phone takes forever
To dial and texting
Is as bad as mailing.

I’m impatient for the week to start
For the week to end
For the theater tickets to be made real
The nice dinner to be seated
The conversation to flow

And when those things don’t happen
According to plan
I’m impatient to be done with them
And moving on to the next thing on the calendar
Marked in red, sometimes underlined.

Hurry up, I’m waiting, used to be the refrain
For a children’s card game we played.
But now the reality of life intrudes
And it’s the refrain of a life spent rushing
And waiting, in toe tapping angst.

I’m impatient.

The Rythym of Life

I had the opportunity to walk around the burb today about the time the students got out of school. They were walking in lumps and clumps along the sidewalks, laughing, poking each other, and some were seriously considering some post or tweet or whatever was on one of their high-tech phones. I looked at my watch and realized that with my being away from my desk today, I had lost track of the time. And then I thought of something else. There was a time when I made sure I was home, in the house at this time of day. I did this for something like 12 years, give or take a day. I was home when the kids came home. The cycle of their days were the same every school day of the year. I thought, when I was in this cycle, that these days would never end. Some days it was tedious, when I knew I had other things to do and couldn't do them until someone got home. Some days I knew it would be interesting, I knew that one of the kids would tell me how their project was received, their report was graded or just the latest news of the school. But those days are a long way away now. And the end of the school day passes by with hardly a blink. I know school day is over when I have to pay more attention to the hordes of children trying to cross the same street I am trying to cross in my car. I notice suddenly, it seems there is more noise outside the window of my living room as they chatter and scream and yell on their travels back to the house.

And suddenly the silence of the house muffles all the outside noises. And the cat and I are alone again, contemplating the quiet.