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| There Are At Least 7 Birds In This Picture If You're Bored, See If You Can Pick Them Out |
This post is related to the next post (tomorrow), so you get a twofer...
We’ve replaced the hummingbird feeder at the kitchen window with a seed-feeder for whoever comes past. The hummingbird thinger will be back later in the year when the springtime herd of them turns up.
But for now, mostly what we're getting is finches, waxwings, cardinals and OBBs (“Ordinary Brown Birds” as my bird-centered, bio-ecologist, field researcher granddaughter who’s about to get her Master’s degree in ecological studies calls them. Yes, I’m totally bragging.)
Depending on the time and the day, we can have so many of the big, flashy-crimson cardinals hanging around that the bushes and on/under the bird-feeders (yeah, multiple) that the yard looks like it has random bright-red satin Christmas-ball decorations littered and hanging everywhere.
This morning a fair-sized batch of black, middle/small-sized birds I’ve never seen before turned up and took over the kitchen-window feeder. The rest got run off to the other feeders, which was no big deal other than it seemed to annoy everyone. I thought the black ones were corvids or grackles, but they’re too small. I guess they could be young ones.
At any rate, their long tail feathers have got ice chunks and glitter to a greater or lesser degree all over them. I can’t imagine it improves their flying and, in fact, they’re looking pretty ratty. It seems likely the result of hanging out on power lines instead of nesting somewhere when our Southern version of “only a couple of days per year” ice storm wandered through last night.
Birds. Who knows?
I stood there in the kitchen in my housecoat with a cup of coffee for probably a quarter-hour watching them and their mini-battles, and at how the cardinals, even the muddy gray-red females, streak and “pop” against the snow-covered background.
The Beneficiary wandered up unnoticed and got her coffee. She stood there with me for a second watching the bird-drama, then put her arm around me.
“You plan on going to work some time today?” she asked idly and sipped her coffee.
I suddenly realized that I had no desire or interest in doing so. Not going would put me way behind on a variety of things and for a second I felt that "Your homework's not done, stop fucking around and get on with it!" dread.
But then, right in the middle of that utterly routine mini-anxiety wave I had what recovering alcoholics call “a moment of clarity”. None of the things waiting for me, I suddenly realized, were anything that would have the slightest real effect on my life nor on the world if they were never done, much less done on time. An almost subliminal current of relief overtook me and replaced that "stop wasting time" adrenaline rush that I'll bet some safe money we all know.
“Nope,” I said, “I am not. Nor tomorrow, either. There’s nothing going on that won’t keep till Monday.” (Or forever, if it gets to that, I thought.)
She glanced up at me, surprised. Her arm around me tightened just a bit and she patted me on the hip.
“Good,” she said, and smiled and we silently watched the birds. We didn’t mention it again.
So now I’m here doing this because it was what I was in the mood to do and she’s humming to herself in the kitchen while she makes a huge, all-the-trimmings breakfast for us because that’s what SHE’S in the mood to do.
We hardly ever eat breakfast anymore. It smells good.
Birds. When I got home after leaving the cat to her own devices for four days, my front step had a few feathers and a leg.
ReplyDeleteFor the last few months, and for the first time ever in our married life, we are cat-free. We've always had a couple (or more) ferals hanging around, but none have turned up for quite awhile. Too bad, I quite liked a couple of them.
DeleteNot surprisingly, this has resulted in a substantial uptick in the local bird population. I did wonder what happened to the cats, though, at least up until I noticed the enormous hawk that's taken up residence in the trees across the field behind the house.
I was watching him lazily patrol the neighborhood the other day and he suddenly folded up and dropped like a lawn dart into the field, doing a Hollywood stunt-flair in the last 1/10 second before ground impact, then powered back up toward the trees with a luckless rabbit or squirrel in his talons. Oh. So THAT'S where the cats went.
Ah, well. As many birds as they probably ate, I imagine it was almost cannibalism for the hawk.
(shrug) Circle o' life, and all that.
I enjoyed this post and your epiphany 💛
ReplyDeleteThanks! It's a process. I'm never gonna be a Marcus Aurelius or Seneca or earn a yellow robe or approach 24/7 Zen mastery or some such drama -- but all of it does in fact grab more and more of a given week. And I notice stuff I should have noticed before with a lot less work.
DeleteI'll never be more than a dilettante, but it's an interesting experiment. And, yes, the fact that I still view it as an "interesting experiment" instead of a lifestyle event is one of many reasons I'm probably never going to be more than a weekend warrior. My observation is that a whole-life dive into philosophical weirdness is just another form of faith-healing and will sooner or later have you chanting on a mountaintop with Ramtha, and charging your energy center with the rising sun via your butthole.
But picking out the parts that make sense and are deeply connected (or at least don't conflict) with how the real world actually works is one of those areas of life where even a little seems demonstrably better at increasing my contentment than none.