I love watching birds, but identifying bird song confounds me.  I just can’t do it.  I know the wild jungle call of the pileated woodpecker, the soft call of a mourning dove and the cheerful chickadee-dee-dee of the chickadee, but that’s about it.  Kurt and I even took a birding class once.  The instructor would play a recording of a bird call and say something optimistic like, “Listen closely and you’ll hear the Carolina Wren sing, “germany, germany, germany.”  We both heard, “Tweet. Tweet. Tweet.”  Or she’d say, “This distinctive call sounds like, ‘Maids, maids, maids, put on your tea, kettle, kettle, kettle’.”  “Tweet. Tweet. Tweet.”  This happened over and over and over again with a wide, seemingly unending, variety of birds.  (Epic failure but we laughed a lot.)  

We have an assortment of bird feeders in our cottage garden. Over the years I have wrestled with my conscience about filling them, as we are a household with cats.  In the past, I’ve felt that putting out bird food was akin to accessorizing avian murder.  It wasn’t bird feeding, it was cat feeding!  Every time a small feathered body was left on my doorstep, I cringed and felt stained with guilt.  Paint a scarlet letter on my forehead!

This year, the severity of the winter weather and the increasing lethargy of my geriatric cats tempted me to try again.  I headed out to the store and pondered over daunting varieties of suet and seed.  Choices made, I returned home and filled up the feeders.  Then I settled in for a winter of bird watching. 

I’ve come to realize that bird watching is addictive.  Walking by the window, I see a flick of movement, and I glance out to see what’s happening.  Before I know it, I’ve sat down and I’m hooked.  It’s like watching fish with a bit more drama.  An aquarium is tranquil.  Silent.  Languid.  The fish glide through the water, meandering through streaming fronds of sea plants.  There’s that mesmerizing element with bird-watching, too; however, there’s the extra allure of the possibility of an unanticipated arrival.  Chickadees are ever-present, brave and cheeky.  But, a flash of red and there’s a cardinal.  Or perhaps a red bellied woodpecker has come to call or a brilliant yellow finch.  One never knows who might appear on the scene.  One thing is for certain, if you walk away, you will miss something!  So, I sit, sip my coffee, watch and listen. For just one more minute.    

A bird does not sing because it has an answer.  It sings because it has a song.  ~Chinese Proverb

My youngest daughter, Lydia, has always had a song.  At an impossibly early age, her older sister taught her to hum “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”  As she got older, we always knew when she was awake in the morning because, like a little bird, she greeted each day with song.  Early in the morning we’d hear her little voice warbling over the baby monitor—the sweetest alarm clock ever.  At restaurants and stores she’d sing in the bathroom.  Loudly.  (I think she enjoyed the acoustics.)  In second grade, she got in trouble for singing too much in class.  It probably didn’t help that she was singing songs like “Cell Block Tango” from the musical, Chicago.  (“You been screwin’ the milkman?”)  And we still tease her about the song she wrote, at perhaps 7, entitled, “I want to be 16 or 18 or older!”.  My darling want-to-grow-up-too-soon musical daughter.  And now, after years of chorus and a few musicals and countless hours of singing, she’s finally there.

This year, as a senior in high school, she had to complete a capstone project.  She opted to study opera.  My daughter, the diva.  I’ve always loved her voice, but now she sings opera and it blows me away.  I don’t have a trained ear and can’t analyze her singing, but oh my goodness, it moves me.  The rise and fall of her voice resonates, joyfully and achingly, somewhere deep in my being. 

Tomorrow as she wraps up her senior year, she presents her capstone project and she’ll be singing.  I’ll be there in the audience, tears brimming, proud and filled with wonder.  How did my little song bird get to be this confident, accomplished young woman?  How quiet our empty nest will be next year.

Beneath the winter debris,
spring is stirring.
I found it in the garden this morning.
In the chilly air, it lay concealed
beneath crumbling russet leaves.
Garden phlox, the boldest,
has ventured an inch above the ground
threading through bleached skeletal stalks
of last year’s abundant growth.
My patient, questing eye detects
the cautious crimson tips of the peony
pressing their way through the earth,
and tender green leaves curled and unfolding,
baubled with sparkling drops from a recent dousing.
Lily of the Valley
Sedum
Cranesbill Geranium
Lady’s Mantle
Columbine
Coral Bells
Jacob’s Ladder
Bleeding Heart
I revel in their promise and their presence
and their names trip off my tongue
like a pagan chant or an ancient blessing.
Warming my heart.
A call to the gods of nature.
Spring is stirring.

This morning the skies are blue and the sun is shining brightly  but the house is quite cool.  I light the wood stove to chase away the chill.  How many more fires will I light before spring is fully entrenched?  Quite a few, I suspect.  In the summer I love the cool mornings with warm days but in early spring the colder mornings can seem like a step backward.  This morning, however, snuggled up with a good pen, a notebook and a fresh cup of coffee, I’m content.

It’s spring break and now that I’m over an unfortunate stomach ailment, I can settle in and enjoy it.  I got up early this morning excited to make my list.  What is it about lists?  I love making them!  They are so full of promise—all that I can do—but also full of duty—all that I need to do.  They cast order over the chaos of my world.  There’s an illusion that all will be well if I just manage to cross out everything on my to-do list. Though at times they are overwhelming, the act of creating them soothes me.  They are my road map to order and organization.

Sometimes I’ll have multiple lists going.  Often one is for school and one for home.  Or one for outside and one for inside.  Or one for a specific topic—like planning for a trip or for a particular room in the house.  My lists can be intended for completion in a day, or over a week, or even over several months.  In a sense, when I create a list, I’m making goals for myself.  And, by the way, I am one of those people.  You know, the ones who will write something on a list that they’ve already done, so that they can cross it off?  Sometimes I will break larger tasks down into several smaller items so they aren’t as daunting and I can see some progress along the way.  Drawing a line through a completed task is a glittery gold star in my world.

Sometimes I’ll write really little things on my list.  I remember talking with my Dad once about my mom’s ubiquitous lists.  He was clearly puzzled.  “Your mother got a bit carried away with lists.  She used to write “pluck eyebrows” on them and things like that.”  Well, Dad, she did have five children in a 7-year span.  I suspect that writing those things on the list was the only way to remember them!  Though I don’t have 5 kids, list love and a pending unibrow were apparently genetic, and I can relate.  It’s just good list practice to add a few things that you can cross off your list with relative ease and that also make you feel better.  Today, I make sure to add “paint toenails” to mine.  It’s my defiant gesture at the lingering cold weather and a list-toast to my mom.

It’s so easy for my focus to narrow to the world of school and home maintenance.  On this break, I’m focusing on home and me.  I’m sure a school list will bubble to the surface soon enough, but for now I’m consciously ignoring that one.  I’m determined to make some visible changes to my house—inside and out.  A painting project will definitely go on the list along with some gardening goals and basic cleaning. My list also carves out space for more personal good intentions.  I want to start running again —“run at least 3 times”.  I’ve also written “do three new things” on my list, along with “go to the beach” and “go to a museum” and “write at least 3 blog posts”. Putting these personal goals and outings on the list elevates them to the same status as the “must dos” or “should dos”.  It reminds me that they are just as valid and worthy of time and effort.  Sometimes I need that reminder.

My list is my map to accomplishing all these things.  In black and white.  And even though I know I won’t cross each item off my list, I still have the evidence of good intentions and the illusion that it’s possible to do it all.  And with some smaller items thrown in, I’m certain to earn at least a few glittery gold stars along the way.

Anticipating
slender spears of asparagus
emerging from the moist garden soil
thick tart rhubarb stalks
lumbering from the earth
waving elephantine leaves
the swollen purple buds of lilacs
scattering sweet scent in the warming air
spiky bursts of yellow forsythia
and coral-hued thorny quince
punctuating the landscape
with brilliant exclamations
a cobalt ocean of scilla undulating,
carpeting the hill to home
blazen, blowzy poppies
dipping and nodding
heads heavy in the breeze
scarlet, bold and gaudy
and glowing ruby jars
of strawberry preserves
cooling on the counter
Anticipating

Our house smells like death.  Even after a long day at school, it’s hard to get excited about coming home when a miasma of decay smacks you in the face as soon as you open the door.  Foul.  It is indisputable.  Something is rotting.  What creature died in these walls this winter?

“You should check the basement,” Kurt says. 

“Me?”  I squawk.  “No way! You should.” 

We still haven’t. 

Last night, fortified with a glass of Malbec,  I opened a few cupboards with trepidation.  “Why would it die now?” I ask him. 

“I think maybe it died this winter and now it’s finally getting warmer outside.”

“So, it’s thawing out?” 

“That’s what I’m guessing,” he said.

Eww.

I stopped opening cupboards.

On the upside, it’s not too bad once you’ve been inside the house for a while.  “Is it a good or a bad thing that we can adjust to the smell of death?” I wonder aloud. Kurt just looks at me.

The weekend is here.  Should I add “look for the dead body” to my growing to-do list?  It’s not-so-surprisingly hard to get motivated to go corpse searching.  Odds are the body is inaccessible, lodged in a crawl space or even in the walls.  So, I’m probably doomed to failure before I begin.  And I know from experience that this is one of those rare problems that will eventually go away if we ignore it.  Time is our ally.  Eventually. 

For now I’m just thankful that we’re not missing a cat.

I had one of those moments this morning.  I was driving to work, along the curving back country roads I love so much.  It’s lighter now in the morning so I can enjoy the view but unfortunately, it was snowing… again.  And I was trying really hard to see the beauty of the flakes though I was tempted to shake my fist at the sky and curse.  Then suddenly my new favorite dance-pumping song came on the radio and my mood elevated.  I cranked up the music and started singing along.  Seeing movement in my peripheral vision, I glanced up and saw two geese flying silently silhouetted against the glowing morning sky.  The truck in front of me was traveling at the perfect Goldilocks speed.  The driver, obviously well acquainted with the roads, expertly wove around frost heaves and bumps.  I followed in his wake, singing at the top of my lungs, tapping my foot to the beat, enjoying the smooth ride and felt for just that moment, that all was right in my world.

When you drive through the Maine countryside you occasionally see abandoned farmhouses gradually losing the battle against time, gravity, neglect and nature.  I always feel a bone-deep sadness when I see them.  I wonder about the families who lived and died in these old homes—who used to take pride in them.  I imagine children running in the dooryard, a dog barking, chickens scratching in the dirt, laundry flapping in the Maine breeze.   Now, a tattered curtain hangs at a broken window and the wind almost echoes with faint voices.  What circumstances left each building empty of current life, yet resonant with the vibrations of centuries of inhabitation?  These buildings speak to me.   

 is for busy

I’m drawn to busy like a bee to nectar
Something about the whirl and tumble
of deadlines and due dates
must emit some hue or essence
that entices me
as I buzz here and there
briefly stopping and then relaunching
into sun-warmed skies
bobbing and weaving
laden with pollen
lured toward the next heady blossom
encumbered in flight
yet flying on.
Busy as a bee.