Category Archives: Birds

The First of March, Morning (53)

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snow on mountain

The first thing I see this morning when I raise my head from the pillow is the new snow on our mountain. The sun is shining and the mountain lies beneath the shadow of a big cloud, so the snow stands out even more against the darkness of the shadowed earth and rock. I revel in the glory of it, our impressive mountains capped in white, like holiday gear, and I watch a lone egret flying west, sunlight on his large white wings, stark against the shadowed mountain. Is this “my” egret from the golf course? I put my head back down again. I’m glad for these two white wonders. What a sweet way to begin my weekend.

Agradecimiento at the Kitchen Window (52)

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view from the kitchen window (palo verde, mountains, lime green umbrella)

I am standing beside the pine table in front of the kitchen window mixing the tuna and medicinal herbs for Sofia. My own watermelon juice was first, the jars full of pink clustered together now on the top shelf of the fridge. I move the blender through its speeds, my body on automatic with the familiar steps. I stand looking outside but not seeing. I am glad I’m finally taking care of this. I’d put it off for too many days, something always getting in the way, robbing the time or the inclination. I flip the lever to slow the speed, turn the other to shut the blender off. I am still staring out the window when I come to. I see Serena, adorned with her yellow palo verde blooms. I see the lime green umbrella, the mountains in the distance, doves in both the tray feeders, late morning snack. Pleasure washes through me. I take it in all at once like a song. I really, really love our new home. Gratitude pours out. This appreciation comes often now, slipping in at odd moments, seeming quieter and deeper than I’ve known before. Maybe that comes with age. Maybe it’s tied to the fact that this one belongs to us more fully than before. Or maybe it’s just her own magic working on me, her spot on the planet, her mountains nearby, her birds, her sky, now her palo verde, her bougainvillea, her human, her cats. I feel like we belong here. And so lucky. I hope she’s glad we came.

Sunday Air (51)

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close-up of a sunflower in sunlight

I roll over on the bed, extend my arms out, flex my hands. It’s Sunday morning, and I relish lounging in bed, indulging in that sweet place between sleeping and wakefulness, soft dreamy half thoughts floating through me. I stretch again, spread my fingers wide. When I arch my back, I see the tiny crescent of the waning moon framed in the clerestory window. I love to see the moon in daylight, and this feels like the perfect beginning. I get out of bed, and I see the sun has already reached the courtyard. The two tallest of the volunteer sunflowers are alive in their namesake’s light. My movement at the window startles doves from the ground. More doves take flight when I open the door, and Boo charges out. I remember it’s the one day of grace from the construction site across our little road. I scurry back inside to do what I revel in doing once each week—I open the louvered windows at the front of the house. The Sunday quiet is the only thing that enters. I stand for long moments looking out the open window in the gentle air.

Three Goldfinch (48)

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One little bird flies into our courtyard garden, alights on the tip of the palo verde, then perches on the wooden fence. He is making a sweet sound, but I am not sure I can place him. He hops from the fence to the tube feeder. I think he might be a verdin, but I don’t even know if they can cling like this, don’t know if they can reach the thistle seeds through the wire mesh. In case it is a goldfinch, I tell him I hope they will be coming back. “I miss you,” I say, and he flies away. Later I see a flicker of movement, and there are two goldfinch at the feeder. I think, how cool is that? I am sure this time they are goldfinch, and females. I picture them living down the street somewhere, just popping in for a bite to eat in the middle of the afternoon. Hope rears its head. I imagine this idea might spread. The two of them are eating now with gusto. “You go, girls,” I say. Maybe word will get around.

Too Tired (44)

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I have a second cup of green tea and toasted rice steeping beside the open kitchen window. After I drank the first cup I found myself nodding off reading. I’m so exhausted I almost can’t function, can’t feel quite like myself, a dull blankness lying over me in layers. How can I let myself become so depleted for work? Can’t I learn to keep better boundaries, check in less often, know when to go to sleep? But when I’m caught up in it, the train holds me rushing down the tracks, the whoosh of air loud in my ears. It doesn’t feel like I have a choice. It feels like all I can do is keep moving through it, swaying car to swaying car. Answer the next question, grade the next submission, remember to cook dinner, feed the cats, field the next three questions waiting after I eat. I call it a night, too tired to wash the dishes waiting in the kitchen sink. While I am in it, the pace sustains me. I wake up early after little sleep, answer more questions from bed. But once the pressure slackens, the train slowing on the tracks, the exhaustion weighs me down, presses me against the earth. Silly mortal. Older mortal now, too. Yesterday afternoon I almost couldn’t stand. Today I think I could fall asleep while I write, but I keep the pen moving across the page. I am in the shade under the umbrella. A house finch calls from the neighbor’s tree. I’d been so eager for this lightening of my load. But I’m too tired to feel it, pressed down as I am by exhaustion, this body heavy like stone. Instead I look forward to being replenished, to feeling lighter, my body not dead weight I wrestle to keep upright, but easy companion, heart lifting again as hearts are meant to do.

The Goldfinch Are Gone (43)

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My goldfinch have all but vanished. I realized it yesterday. I felt bad, being me, wondering if it was somehow my fault they were gone. And had I been too lost in my work these past two weeks to even notice? I knew the nyger seed was not disappearing like it used to, and then it stopped disappearing all together. This morning I saw one goldfinch on the tube feeder. I haven’t seen or heard another all day. Now the tube feeder hangs there empty in the late afternoon sun, swaying the tiniest bit in the breeze. What happened? The worst part is not hearing their song in the early hours of the day. It makes me sad I didn’t recognize the first morning it was gone. How could that silence not have cried out to me lying there in bed? I have let my work sweep me away again. I was so awed by the goldfinch, by their numbers, their good cheer, their lively chatter and singing making our home abundant in bird company so much sooner than I’d dreamed it might happen. Did they go somewhere else because there are new leaves now on the neighbor’s tree? Is the tube feeder too hot now in the sun where it has lived since we moved in? I can’t remember when the goldfinch arrived here. I know at our old place on Avenida Ortega they visited all year round, but never in the numbers we were gifted with here. I feel helpless. I hope they’ll come back again. Maybe in the fall? I still can’t help feeling like I wasn’t paying attention. I never knew, never wished them bon voyage. So I will say it now. “Vayan con diosa,” my little feathered ones. “Que les vayan bien.” May all be well with you. Come home soon.

Bad Friday (37)

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I was cranky on the phone with my mother in the late morning. I blame it on hours of outrageous droning machinery that began before I was awake. They are putting in the pool at the house on the corner. In the afternoon I’m writing in my daily notebook. I can hear the construction workers yelling to make themselves heard over a new machine, an incessant whining at one of the houses closer to me. There is a small breeze. I want to savor the way the air feels against my skin. One lone dove is enjoying the birdseed in the big tray feeder, but I can’t hear her over the noise. The sound drills holes in my head. All day I brace against it. Even when I try to surrender, to let it wash over me and away, its teeth chew on me. Even now, when I turn to admire a goldfinch perched on the fence, the machine, the yelling, intrude. Now there is another sound, an endless grinding from the house nearest me. Polishing the cement? My right temple throbs. In the unexpected gap between assaults, everything softens. I hear the quiet sounds of the doves pecking in the feeder, two of them now. I hear the pwitter of dove wings, two more flying to the neighbor’s carport, queuing up for their afternoon meal. I take the first full breath I remember taking since the day began. I sink more fully into my chair. One day the construction will be over.