This morning is the first gray, stormy morning of the year –
humid wind turning new kelly leaves upside-down, tiny songbirds with ruffled
feathers surfing on wild branches. It’s an electric exhilaration I didn’t know
I missed so much.
There are a whole host of things – words, experiences,
memories, feelings – I haven’t realized I’ve missed while in the depths of
winter’s dormancy. The months of this long, cold winter and late spring have
left both the internal and external sap slow to rise. There are, of course,
lessons to be learned in the wait of winter, including the understanding that
to a tree or hibernating woodchuck the very experience of waiting depends upon a conception of future itself (what
would it be like to live entirely in the present? To unfold daily, to simply
respond accordingly to one’s surroundings?).
But now everything is springing, and soon will all have
sprung. I wrote before that fall is a verb, and so is spring. The action is
fast, cascading, accelerating every single day. The world changes before our
eyes. We are on the inhale of the year. In a week we went from bud to leaf
(days in the high seventies were a help), in two days the purple dame’s rocket
took over the trailsides. The fruit trees blossomed and went to leaf, the nettles
are up, and succulent little jewelweed cotyledons are out just this morning. And the birds!
All these somersaulting changes lead me to understand that
the only way one could possibly witness this rapid unfolding is by looking. In
the same place. Every day. The past decade or so has been mind-bogglingly
peripatetic for me, as it is for many people in their twenties, especially
people engaged in seasonal work.
There is value to breadth of experience, but more and more I’m
appreciating depth, the clearer understanding that comes with staying. We’ve
been in the same place now for a whopping seventeen months, the longest I’ve
lived anywhere. But you can learn a lot in that time, especially if you happen
to have a dog.
Daily, repeated walks are a gift and a tutor. Every day, at
the same time, we walk the trail by the brook that runs into the Winooski,
bordered by boxelder, dogwood, and willow (as well as the invasive goutweed and
knotweed). While somewhat suburban, it’s also thriving bird habitat. Here is where
I get to experience the rush of spring at its height. For the past month, every
two days or so I get to welcome a new resident. First the robins, then the
grackles and blackbirds, next the ever-present song sparrow, with its song that
sounds like dial-up internet. Next came the flycatchers, the phoebe and the peewee, timed, of course, to the explosion of flying insects. A week and a half ago I started hearing the
‘tsee-tsee-TSEE-o!’ of the American redstart (a showy bird I can almost never
see). Finally, four days ago, the yellow warbler showed up (sweet sweet sweet
little more sweet), and, yesterday, the common yellowthroat, with its smashing
black mask and witchity-witchity song. It feels like a crescendo - one I would not be able to experience if I hadn't been present throughout the entirety of the song so far. I feel like a hostess as some great
gathering, whose doorbell keeps ringing with new arrivals. It’s a lovely
feeling, and one that brings celebration and great relief.
Because, I mean, after that winter, I think we do deserve a party. And birds are very entertaining
guests.
