A Tide of Swallows

At the edge of the lake, the grass had been obscured by reds, oranges and yellows in infinite and indescribable variations and combinations, the trees above seeming to emit their own light as they reflected the sun in contrast against the blue skies and the greyness of the waters, leaving me with my nose pressed up against the car window having run short of time, my heart aching as I drove away, feeling like my eyes had been newly opened to something both routine and wonderful. We spent the evening playing pool with friends and having a mixed reaction to the experience, which I think will inform future choices on how to best spend our precious, limited hours on this Earth.

After bathing in the ice-cold moon, I trudge home with pink-flushed cheeks to the warmth of my apartment and as I shut the door, the wind presses in against the glass and the rain pelts down the gutters to splash upon the windowsill, nature continuing to shift outside while I still feel it fresh on my skin, autumn leaves still stuck to my shoes. Sundays are turning into the same formula, a bit of hard work, a bit of planning and reflecting, and a whole bunch of game playing, a routine I’m pretty happy to continue.

He watches over the street at night, sometimes for hours at a time, a tuxedoed crusader attuned to whisker vibrations and the smallest of sounds, body haunched in stillness and patience, eyes wide to the unseen, velvet ears perked towards the invisible; his fur is cold to my touch as my fingers greet him and thank him for his service. It was another crazy day at work today as I finally caught up with my own expectations of myself, which are not always firmly based in reality.

On Samhain I stroke my prize Raven feather and feel the strong rachis mast that billows the vane, those soft barbs that give and return, while outside the veil is thin and the skies are pitch black and I feel like I have reached some hidden place that I never want to leave. We spent the evening indoors, away from people, each of us doing our own things to welcome the new year. 

Reflected by the occluded full moon, the leaves shimmered in the bite of the wind, no longer with soothing soft hush-whisper breaths, but with the shuffling of paper and the sweep of a broom brush against the cracked wood of the porch. Work continued to push my boundaries to the limit as I fought against reality a bit by pushing through well into the night.

I emerge from my home into a cold silence, a rainbow encircling the moon, wisp clouds passing over the surface like lost Halloween wraiths, a bank of dark clouds leading away from the light in a gradient of shadows.Things began to shift to a better place with work and my routines, though I’m a bit lost in my old brain quagmire again, not helped by the sudden darkness that seems to have come to the world as winter approaches.

The junco called from the fence post, heralding the first snow, and as the soft, puffy flakes settled on his charcoal head, his happy trill rose and fell, come see, come see, come see! Things changed in a big way for me today as I got back to my routine, focused in for a full day of work, and had a connective evening with my wife as the treasure of another weekend arrived.

The crows emerged from the unseen lands, taking to the skies in a sudden black cloud of wings and loud opinions, jockeying for position at the tower’s peak among the aerials and satellite dishes where they continued their observations, unnoticed except by those who took the time to raise their heads. We have had a day of puttering and holiday planning, doughnut eating and general relaxation and I wish there were more days like this in a lifetime.

As we move away from the brilliant fiery finale of autumn into the badlands of greyscale, I struggle with hibernation, drinking hot tea while the rain falls, in love with the simplicity and the slowness, seeking a balance between the natural energy of the season and the desire not to separate myself from what is still a thriving world outside. My projects continue to roll onward, some of them lessening by a few degrees, giving me the chance to have a few breaths and more reflection on my life and how I’m living it.

The mornings are cold and the evenings dark as pitch, and as the tangled chaos of squirrel nests are revealed by the now-barren trees, as the grass grows stiff and brittle underneath the gnarled oak limb, the door spider curls into a tight ball and vanishes and the wind howls between the buildings, jangling wind chimes awake and invading my nose with the scent of coming snow.  I’m having a very difficult week adjusting to the time change, as I always do, feeling on the verge of nausea and weariness no matter what I try to do until I can adjust to the new reality.

I am left wondering about that Flicker and the sharp song I heard calling out over the white noise of the last wind storm, for after that moment, the snow fell and the small birds fled to more plentiful grounds, to backyards and nut trees, as if he was marking the end of something in a language unknown to us lesser beings. It’s shocking to me that it is nearing the middle of November, that another year will be over soon, and that this project, now at over 300 posts will be ending with it.

As I walked on a grey overcast morning, I heard the eponymous chorus of chickadees in the balding bushes, watched squirrels bound through decaying leaves like tiny gazelles, and realized just how non-linear the course of the seasons is and how delicately defined the boundaries are of each of nature’s microcosms. I took myself to a movie tonight and lost myself for three hours in a visually splendid world, feeling like a kid sneaking out on a school night.

Sometimes, when I go to bed, I think about the coyotes that live in the woodlands that hug the lakeshore in a den unseen in the shallow ravines; they pass unnoticed under our windows at night, lanky grey forms on the edges of light, singing their world into being. I’m finally getting over the time shift and already looking forward to the weekend, hoping that the lead up to Thanksgiving is relatively smooth and that I will somehow feel more alive by then than I do now.

In the hour of the wolf, from the edges beyond the wash of the streetlights, the fog extended one wispy tendril towards the visible and then exhaled into every available space, lacing around tree limbs, climbing terraces, skirting the surface of sleeping grasses until everything was made of it – a massive wall of swirling white ghosts eating all definition. My imbalance at work bled into my weekend and I seem unable to find my path through it or realize the need for some distance.

In mid-November, what we call the yellow tree has finally turned yellow, leaving behind its green, shimmering companionship and its lively windy dances to settle into a state of quiet meditation before its well-deserved winter sleep. Work dogged me even harder today, causing me to lose out on much of my weekend, though I did manage to enjoy a wonderful evening of connection and laughter with good friends.

As the rain fell on the hunched silhouette of a solitary crow perched on the wires above me, the spider tumbled from the doorframe with the vibration of my passing, returning eventually to his task of webbing our entire entranceway shut – a futile task given that he is unlikely ever to catch one of us. It was a mix of a day, somewhere between work worries, Christmas talk, health issues and too many tasks and I end my weekend wondering what happened to it.

For a long time there was nothing but the roar of the wind, the clouds racing across the charcoal expanse, the last autumn leaves ripped from their roots and sent spiraling skyward, until whatever whatever wild party that had bustled down from the heavens finally expired in a last drunken sigh as the South Wind fell into slumber and the calm, soothing moon rose over the horizon. I can already tell that the build up to the holidays is going to be inordinately stressful and difficult and as much as I’d like to give in to that reality, I am too burned out to feel anything but tired.

The simple beauty of geese in flight as sundown approached caused me to catch my breath, their fluid skein stretching the length of my vision, their constant chatter echoing off the shadowed buildings beneath them as they headed south to some other hopeful land. ( decided to take myself to a movie tonight, despite my week, and found tremendous joy in spending time with myself, especially out alone in the late dark.

I marvel at the hidden journeys of winter songbirds on days like today as our neighborhood became suddenly awash in chips and chitters, the buzz of hummingbirds, and the serenading of a  handful of unidentified singers, all of whom were gone before I could gather up my binoculars to discover their names. Hard work returned with a vengeance today as things turn pear-shaped in my lead up to the holiday.

I hear the landlord’s broom several times a year, brushing the webs away, evicting the community of spiders that have taken up residence on the porch, and it always saddens me, this destruction of life for the sake of appearance, one of the more perfect demonstrations of our continued separation with nature. Work hit one of the worst patches I’ve seen in years today and as the stress and struggle caught up to me, I spent at least three hours motionless on the sofa under a blanket mindlessly watching television.