Starting Over...Again

I have been trying to get myself to write again for weeks. Two weeks after my last post my mother passed away suddenly. Two months have passed since. Life is different in a million small ways and even where it’s the same it is still different. It doesn’t feel right to write as if nothing has changed and yet it’s as if the light has changed and so it changes everything in subtle ways that are just as difficult to describe.

I’ve thought about writing a lot which of course is not at all the same as doing it. I’ve thought about writing a series of posts, one at a time, on each species of bird I encounter in my little piece of the world. Maybe I could draw the bird, choose some photos and write a story involving the bird. I have no desire to write scientifically -there are plenty of places one can go to find technical details - but maybe to write about how I experience that particular creature at a particular time. I started a post about a Tufted Titmouse multiple times but it hasn’t had the energy to carry it through.

I’ve thought about writing fictional stories from the point of view of one of the creatures I encounter in the wild. I think it could be fun to imagine myself as the titmouse and write about an event from his (or her) perspective. Maybe write from the perspective of the lake itself - how does she experience the sunrise, the migrating birds, the crazy woman with her camera or even the crowds of humans with all their noise?

I’ve thought about writing about the moment of winter I wait for all year - the moment that seemed as if it would not come this year but finally did near the end of February. The time when the lake finally freezes, the ponds freeze and all the little ducks come to a small place of refuge in the marina where the bubblers keep a small amount of water unfrozen. Some years I get weeks on the edge when the lake and ponds are frozen every morning but melting into the afternoon. Those coveted days with melting and refreezing and gulls and eagles looking for frozen fish morsels as the ice gets melty on top are full of magic. There was none of that this year until the arctic blast came through in February and then it was too cold and cloudy to go out for a week.

My moment did finally come though and it lasted just a few days before the 60 degree temperatures quickly melted the ice for the season. I took thousands of pictures from close range of the small handful of ducks that appeared - redheads, greater scaups, hooded mergansers, common goldeneyes, mallards, gadwalls and a couple of rogue American coots who had apparently stuck it out all winter. I enjoyed the magic of sitting there in the quiet with the ducks, undisturbed by humans, when just for a little while they let me into their world.

I’ve thought about writing how quickly spring comes after that late winter freeze. How the cardinals started singing before the ice even melted and within a week the robins and finches joined in. Another week and the ducks of spring are on the move and all too quickly now the songbirds will arrive.

Spring this year also comes with the arrival of vaccines and the promise of a future where we don’t fear every other human we encounter might bring a lethal gift. It will hopefully bring a return to closeness with family and friends. I honestly usually dread summer a little bit, that time when so many others show up in my little nature spots and I lose the quiet solitude of winter. Last year I found that my little nature spots were overflowing with people who had nothing else to do and so the solitude and quiet were harder to find. I was lucky last year to discover the little pond and the open fields in my neighborhood were brimming with Life. It is lovely to know I have an alternative location for sunrise photos right outside my door and who knows, maybe even a horned lark or two will appear this year even though the open fields have been reduced with the building of new homes.

Spring this year will also carry sadness for my family as we mark Mom’s first birthday without her. My mother’s birthday is the first day of spring, it was her father’s birthday as well. In the weeks since her death I’ve come to know so much more about the love my mom and dad shared through my dad’s stories. I’ve learned my dad was smitten with her at 17 when he wrote in her yearbook, “I think fate has destined our paths to go through the future together. I hope so with all my heart.” I’ve come to see a depth of connection there that wasn’t always apparent through the particularly biased eyes of a child. I have felt the loss deeply, both the loss of what I knew and the loss of what I hadn’t known before, even as the stories provide comfort and connection.

This is a year when millions are grieving the unexpected losses of last year. I find myself exhausted in ways I haven’t felt before. So many I know are looking forward to a time when life speeds up, is busier and full of activities again. I find myself longing for empty spaces and a slower pace. I long for an end to the pervasive anxiety the pandemic created and I am admittedly anxious about what a return to being with other humans will bring. It feels strange to stand within 10 feet of someone now, how much stranger still the idea of eating at a table with other people.

All I know for sure is that it will come. For all we sometimes think we control, we simply play the hand of life as it’s dealt until our particular thread comes to an end. So it will come and we will make our way. Starting over. Again.