A Tide of Swallows

We took a walk in the brilliant low-winter sun around towering, sleeping trees in their Arboretum beds and talked about the new year. Everything is fresh at home after we cleared out the holidays from our nest.

The whole world seemed locked in ice, that kind of cold without the vibrance of wind or the beauty of snow, just stillness and quiet. Insomnia, stomach issues, and anxiety combined to seal me indoors in a day that was like a dead pixel.

As seen from my window, the world outside was chillingly cold, salt spread on the icy walkways, people bunched up walking home in the dark. I turned to screens and devices and lost myself in the streaming life of other places – sunsets in Hawai’i and Hiroshima, gardens and temples in Kyoto, beaches in Sydney, lions prowling the plains, and the busy streets and markets of Hong Kong.

A cloudless, brilliant blue sky and sunlight streaming in from every corner caused the winter berries and the popcorn bush to glimmer in the cold. My internal engine is still slow to start and I seem to be sputtering through the first week of the year, avoiding, rebelling, isolating.

I watched the tuxedo cat next door brave his frigid yard to feast on green shoots that miraculously survive in frozen soil; his tilted head, his long twitching whiskers brushing the ground, his eyes opened wide with pleasure reminded me of the passing of Fats the cat and my own mortality. Later, I took a long walk in the absolute dark and imagined I lived in Iceland at a time when the sun never rises.

A brilliant, summer-like sunset hung as a suspended watercolor fire in the sky for what seemed like hours, but did little to warm up the earth below. Inside, we are replacing all our antiquated systems with devices that do our bidding without question, and I am hoping that I won’t eventually be replaced as well.

The threat of ice turns instead to rain and the overstuffed crows of our neighborhood strut off the curbs in search of treasures brought forth by the tides of the changing weather. We hunkered down with friends and played the part of Baker Street Irregulars once again, giggling until we cried.

There’s the moment when after a long stretch of sunlight, the rains come back and the gutters drip and the windowsills patter for hours and you are reminded that it is still winter and there’s a lot more of it to go. We ate bagels in an accidental community this morning – a shining, powered refuge for a number of people, unlike us, who woke up to find the lights had all gone out.

It seemed a heavy day- greyness hung on every tree, low clouds compressed the sky. I am thankful that I know now what I will never be in my life, but also wish I would have realized it sooner.

Whenever there is wind, things seem right to me, even the bone-chillingly frigid wind that came along with today’s ice-blue sky. I heard an airplane low over the rooftops and it fooled me into thinking it was spring; that sound is still the sound of barefeet and sprinklers.

From this side of the glass, mainly darkness and the impact of wind, stilness in the cloud cover as nothing seems to move. When you work from home, winter is the hardest month.

Up on the gutters, the crows were calling for the first time in the new year, remarking on the sunshine or challenging the seagulls or scolding the too solid ground, I’m not sure which. They always soothe me, me who is far too easily toppled by the worldly winds.

A massive, rust haze of a full moon shimmered over us as we walked to dinner, moving bare branches out of our path. There’s a three-day weekend ahead of me and I’m feeling things shift.

We walked through Discovery in the early-afternoon sunshine among the bare-limbed trees, the mossy-trunked trees and the tufted evergreens while noticing the first appearance of robins chittering above the meadow abutting the bluff. We returned home to whistling starlings returning to the gutters and a giant V of geese overhead in the twilight, and everything suddenly seemed possible again.

There’s no denying now that bird life is increasing in activity, very slowly but with the surety of winged things being awakened to the urge to seek early buds and find partners. A book was my companion through the day and well into the night.

The world continued somewhere outside my door, but I did not show up for it, nor did I notice it, nor did I realize the day had passed until it was dark. My mind was in a book and I was somewhere in Ecuador taking care of jaguars, which is really no excuse.

Rain, and more rain, and when the gutters overflowed, more rain, and when the streets flooded, more rain, steadfast and relentless, calling octopus from the shade, hoisting rusted wrecks from the depths. I poured almond milk into my keyboard and hid under the blankets.

Sometimes, I list wildly to port and my job takes over everything I see, the windows are shut and the world outside might as well be full of dark seas. It’s days like this that are lost to me, but at least I’ve grown to able to notice the leak.

For the first time this year, I noticed the skies getting lighter at night as I wait for the winds to change direction and trend towards spring. Life is a measured best on the miniscule level, as that’s where the magic happens.

A night of neighborhood cats – sniffing the wind as the scents of February draw near, impatiently waiting for the cold and wet to permanently lift so they can regain their self-appointed reign over shadowy streets. My desperate need to understand and my pretender syndrome mix together to create my own fantasy of struggle and failure that leads again to poor work/life balance.