A Tide of Swallows

Camping chairs on the grass overlooked the calm, blue waters that rolled towards shadowed peaks in the distance, and as the breeze picked up around the bend, the scent of the sea rose strong, the sky was bright and full of cotton clouds, and an eagle called from the tops of the evergreen forest behind us at shiny, curious crows. There are few things better that the marriage of close friends and nature and the routine of ritual; We celebrated my wife’s birthday in Lincoln Park on one of the most beautiful days of the year.

We discovered that the tiny, well-behaved purple potted flowers we bought for the porch last year had somehow escaped to the wild and have established a towering colony of feral cousins, the perfect example of the untamed lush early summer we are enjoying in Seattle. I spent most of the day reading tarot, bent over my kindle, or giggling well into the night playing video games with my good friend.

Things were flat today; colder and grayer weather returned, and even the birds seemed like they were taking a break in the silence before the hot months arrive. I was also flat, lacking motivation or energy, prone to losing myself in thought.

Seagulls and crows take to the rooftops in an ancient, endless battle, a Stellar’s Jay ruffles his midnight crest and leans forward in a dazzling blue rage to issue a scolding to the cat in the shadows, the hummingbird throws his lightning body at a snooping starling who remains unfazed until the beak strikes home, and the tension of baby bird season continues. My flatness continues, perhaps the weight of too many self conversations and too much uncertainty, too many projects, too many worries, and is not helped by having the windows closed in the grayness.

The movement of nature also occurs at the smallest level, as I have caught a summer bug, sadly not the kind that flits around the windows. It is time for sleep and self care and hopeful healing before the promise of a weekend outing.

I was entranced by and in love with that little, spunky, perfect bird hopping along the top of the fence, his dark head tilted back in song, his white tail feathers forked for balance; after reaching for both my binoculars and my bird identification app, I realized it was a Dark-eyed Junco of the kind I’d seen a million times before and that the sudden beauty of such a common bird to me blinded me to his true identity and proved how I had taken his beauty for granted a million times previously.  My cold settled deep into my body today, sending me into dreamland on the sofa several times as I tried to go about my normal routine, turning everything slightly on its edge.

The grey pressed against my windows and my cold pressed against my head, until we both gave up and the sunlight appeared and the windows were opened and I suddenly felt a hundred times better. We had a date night tonight at the movies, which is a rare things for us, and watched the amazing and inspiring Wonder Woman.

Beauty and magic resonated around us: the snow of cottonwood, the earthy scent of sage and chamomile, delicate white and yellow wildflowers carpeting the desert canyon’s muted greens and browns, the sound of the quaking aspens in the breeze like tiny shimmering wings, shiny black beetles crossing the dusty path, the creek burbling to one side as our journey wound back to it again, glimpses of the industry of beavers along the banks, ravens riding the updrafts high above along the cliffs while calling out their names,  and at the end of the day the warning rattle by my foot and the sinewy striped body as it disappeared into the brush. We went on our first true road trip of the year today to the Umtanum Canyon, fleeing the rain and grayness of the western side of the mountains for the welcomed dry heat of the east.

I chose to spend this day working in the home, quietly looking out the window at the world as it passed by, hearing birdsong and the music of wind chimes stepping on the porch from time to time to sniff at the faintly-scented air and close my eyes. Mosquito bites itch and muscles ache and we aren’t any younger, but I felt complete and whole at the end of the weekend.

I must have walked by those flowers a million times, but it wasn’t until my wife picked me a bunch and put them on my desk after a long and challenging day that I really looked at them for the first time and appreciated how delicate, unique, and perfect they are and how much joy they bring me. Enough said about this day for it was not one that I want to repeat, either in the physical world or in the malaise of swampland that my brain can create.

This far north in the summer it remains daylight until ten at night, the gentle summer breeze nudging the grey-blue clouds into a darkness tinted with yellows, a darkness that will never quite reach completion.  Happy Summer Solstice to anyone who may be reading this, and I hope you found some light and happiness in the Midsummer.

Sometime, during the night, the tiniest spider that ever was, thrilled at finding a spot of wilderness within the strange world she was now wandering, spun a perfect web engulfing the blossoms of my flowers and reaching to my desk. I have so many projects going on, stresses stressing and needs to fulfill that I’m losing track of time and the days of the week, but I believe this is Wednesday.

I could hear them long before they arrived, a massive flock of crows searching for a roosting spot, alighting and flying and alighting and flying in a black chaos cloud at the top of the tallest tree across the street, swerving and diving and cawing for position, voices raised in a million mixed emotions, until some hidden directive informed them to move on to better prospects and they vanished into the northern horizon like an undulating shadow. Thursday night is my favorite night of the week and this week is no different, so after our usual Subway I am now finishing out the last of the tasks before the weekend.

The flowers have turned the streets wild with blossom and scent, have taken over every corner with petal and leaf, shoots emerging from the sidewalk cracks, bushy greenery confettied with sun-turned faces. I sat on the porch today and felt the breeze of a summer evening roll across me, content for a while in the non-being.

When you look for me, you will find me on the fringes, there shadowed among the trees, with the fat evening moths silhouetted against the gradient sunset, turning myself slowly into the wind, immersing back into the substance of everything; for only there I am truly happy as I become nothing, as the weasel walks from the thicket and we share the same moment of smallness, of uncertainty, of wonder until the low bellow of the ghost train startles us both back into being. I celebrated the wedding of two very good friends tonight and managed also to discover a bit of my soul that had wandered off into the woods and was looking for a way home.

I am also that sluggish crow with his beak open, hopping from roof shingle to roof shingle looking for relief, fleshy pink mouth downturned and eyes shut. Today was a scorcher and we are suffering for it, but still managed a balanced day and a good end of the weekend before next week’s substantial challenges arrive.

As I drove around the corner, the moon hung as a perfect golden sliver in a dark blue sky without a cloud to bother it or a visible star to interfere, just a brilliant crescent doorway cut into the heavens. It was one of those lost days, full of distractions and false pathways and mind battles, a weary Monday where it’s hard to find the uniqueness in the routine or the struggle.

After the dilation, I was blinded by the light and so strolled down the sidewalk in the darkness of closed eyes, only to find myself so deeply taken by the variety of birdsong around me – not in the diversification of species, but in the unique individual accents and choice of emphasis, the freedom of expression within a fixed system of musical progression – that I nearly stepped into traffic. I spent three hours in the eye doctor’s office, not because anything was wrong, but because it’s the most raucous, chaotic, and extroverted place on the planet and with more than a few belly laughs caused and taken, I drove home happy with good health. 

I took a walk in the 10pm daylight, down through blue-filtered streets and under the swaying trees, windows teeming with life as I passed, imagining myself as a fox traveling unnoticed by the humans inside and wondering how often one of those humans had been me and what exactly had walked unnoticed under my window. The week begins to bend down now again, but my mind is still lost and wandering somewhere regretful and melancholy, always happy for moments of presence when they appear.

As I stood on the porch, I suddenly shifted my focus and saw our yard not as the chaos brought about by landlord negligence, but as a patch of wilderness with sprawling ivy and a thriving rogue’s gallery of various misfit plants and flowers, some intended and some accidental, a feast for dragonflies and hummingbirds and a temporary entangled shelter for any manner of small creatures and ground birds. It’s been a struggle of a week emotionally and I’m hoping that I can find a better balance in myself by Monday, which is the start of a very weirdly-scheduled week with a holiday stuck in the middle of it just like the giant Christmas tree that is now growing over the porch.