It’s funny how nothing goes as I expect. I thought the challenges this week would come from fireworks and noise. Instead, the challenges came from rain, rain, and more rain. 10-12 inches of rain in a 48-hour period, which is more than even the previously dry earth could absorb. It wasn’t fireworks that woke me up on the Fourth of July, it was 4 AM emergency flood alerts on the phone.
The rain formed a river in the backyard and flooded local creeks, rivers, and low-lying areas. My dad and many others had water in their basements. I feel lucky as these things go and now I’m hoping we don’t get any more rain until things have a chance to dry out. Rain is forecast for Sunday so I’m doing my anti-rain dance and prayers.
You can see in the photo above that the lake was flooded. I estimated it was 5-6 feet higher on Friday than the previous weekend. By Saturday it had dropped about 18 inches and the picnic tables were back on dry land.
The silver linings? Thursday night I was so tired from the early morning wakeup, I fell asleep with my earplugs in at 8:45 PM and somehow slept through all the fireworks. What a blessing! On Friday when I arrived at the lake there was no trash to be found - on what is usually the worst trash weekend of the year. All the gates, the swimming beach, most of the trails, and the secondary boat dock were closed due to flooding. I had a blessedly quiet walk along the road, just birds, bugs, and me. I don’t think that’s ever happened on a holiday weekend either!
We pause for a moment of humor. AI won’t even guess at what my crawfish photo is and it has identified the raindrops as a butterfly. This is why AI is not taking over the world just yet.
Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t wish for flooding to create peace and quiet. I have a brain that excels in identifying all the possible ways things might go wrong and it was in high gear at 4 AM on Thursday. One antidote to my anxious mind is really noticing the positives. The question I’m working with is, “What is the gift in this?”
With my brain in high gear and not nearly enough sleep, I went for a walk. Nothing else to do really and it’s my best chance at quieting my anxious mind. Fortunately, nature has ways of opening my awareness and focusing my attention on the positive - like all the baby birds!
First up in the baby bird brigade, the brown thrashers I found in a neighborhood tree. I can always tell the juveniles by their fluttering and begging but the brown thrashers have an additional distinction, their blue eye. Notice in the photo above the yellow eye of the adult and the light blue eye of the fledgling. Baby birds of most species also have a bill that opens extra wide for receiving food. The area where the upper bill and lower bill are joined is called the “gape” and it is softer for baby birds than for adults. You can see this in the photo below, just under the eye.
While watching the brown thrasher, a fledgling cardinal appeared underneath with mulberry clinging to its bill. Mulberry trees, blackberry bushes, and wild grape vines are good spots to watch for baby birds.
The avian baby boom in the neighborhood park has been quite successful, despite the loss of habitat as surrounding areas are developed. Next up in the fledgling parade, chickadees! There were at least eight fledglings chasing the adults around the trees.
The orchard orioles in their bright yellow might be my favorites. Watch this mom trying to get a moment of peace with her baby - and notice that the baby is larger than mom! A handful to feed!
I’ve heard the anxious mind described as a puppy that needs to be trained. Perhaps it’s more like a baby bird - extremely focused on what it wants and unable to let go and patiently wait. The baby bird’s persistence helps it survive those early days. As the bird gets older, it needs new skills for survival. It needs to be aware of it’s surroundings and take in more information than where there is food and where the parents are.
I’m reading a book called “On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes” by Alexandra Horowitz as part of Mike Snowden’s “Big Amazing Read”. If you are curious to participate you can find out more in his post below:
In Chapter 1, I find myself contemplating the difference between attention and awareness. Attention gets a lot of hype. From the time we are young we are told often to, “pay attention!” and “focus!” Book after book and website after website promise to help you gain control of your attention and focus better. We identify a lack of focus as a disease, attention deficit disorder. In the past year I’ve understood my neurodivergent brain to have the challenges of ADHD.
When I’m out in nature and not lost in thought, this same brain seems to excel at seeing a lot of what’s around me, seeing movement, and generally taking in a large amount of information. I can’t say my brain takes in everything, we all miss quite a lot, but my brain seems to take in more than most. This is true in my everyday life too. My ability to be aware of multiple things happening at one time is a gift - in the right setting.
Perhaps it isn’t a matter of attention vs. awareness but rather an ability to move fluidly back and forth between them? When my brain is hyperfocused on one thing, especially a problem (or potential problem) to be solved, it has difficulty moving back into a state of awareness. Awareness has a feeling of relaxation and expansion where attention feels more contracted.
I can see this ability to both be in a state of awareness and to move fluidly between focused attention and relaxed awareness when I watch hawks and herons. This is a skill I want to cultivate more, both in my nature practice and throughout my life.
Today I practiced moving back and forth between relaxed awareness and focused attention. The pathway is there and I could see how sometimes it’s easier than others. I’m looking forward to a lot more practice!
I’d love to hear your thoughts about attention and awareness! Let me know in the comments or email.
Thanks for describing so well that ability to be aware of everything around me even while focused on one thing, and the movement between the two as a skill. I don't know if I have ADHD, it's certainly in my family, but I do know that my husband and I have very different ways of focusing and paying attention.
I never knew Brown Thrasher juvies had blue eyes!! Thanks for sharing. All of your attentions are always so riveting to me. I leave your substack with a desire to pay more attention. I think I live in awareness more than attention. The big picture vs. the detail. I see a lot, but I miss a lot. My partner is the opposite. They are attention vs. awareness. We make a great team on walks. ❤️