Morning

I am not a morning person.

As I get older and my ideas change, I wish I were.... but let me state again.... I am not a morning person.

Nonetheless, this week my manager has found it important to have me at work by seven (Yes, that one vehicle in the parking lot... you know, the red pick-up?.... is there simply for a Peace Lily.)

If I'm to be there at seven, I have to be up by 5:15 at the latest. It's dark then. Dark used to mean bright lights and loud music. Now dark means; where's my soda, cigarette's, pants and the dog? Because we have to either walk or play.

At six in the morning we usually walk, and oh, what glorious walks they've been these past two mornings. This morning I just stopped for the sound in the trees. It was so unexpected Meander just stood there with me as I listened.

The birds are coming back and they are feisty. I've never heard them like this before. They are insistent and strident and loud. There is one song I've heard only occasionally, but I come to think it's from a Robin.... singing some weird, "I'm here. Where are you', thing.... but it's so full and liquid in the hearing. There were other songs... many other songs... and when you listened you heard call-backs. All that communication, just in sound.

As we stood and listened I saw the sky over the lake. The sun had a good way to go before cresting, so there were only dusky blue clouds creating a comma in front some clear, pink and lavender sky... far out. Mostly, it was dim.

The thing that I noticed was that as I stood there and took in the sound and the sky and the water, which was only a lazy lapping... I could ( somewhat) hear traffic, but it didn't matter. What I was truly, quietly 'witnessing' as I stood there with Meander, was what the world has always been no matter what we've etched upon it.

You think about what's happened in Japan, close to the sea.... caused in part by the sea. I imagine as people sit amongst the rubble and contemplate, fear and try to realign their future, they hear the birdsong... see the dawning sky. When you are in that much pain and confusion, does the sound and sight of it offer certain solace because it's one thing you know or sorrow because it's something you know that goes on forever without you?

I have reason to think that my life might get better, but I don't think it would matter.

There is wisdom in understanding that every spring the Baltimore Oriole will stop by a park in a northern suburb before going on to his summer home. That the Robins will be everywhere. The that Barn Swallows will be back to our porches, looking for last years home. That Reva might be able to feed her Hummingbirds again.

I might be able to watch the Swallows again, thanks to a friend. I might be able to do many things, but it's sweet to know that in the end, nature will out.

Japan

I was in the break room this morning and people were staring at photos in the newspaper of Japan. I'll give them this... they were really quiet, which does not happen.

I asked them if anyone had seen some of the video that's out there that was taken during the earthquake and tsunami. For a room full of people who do nothing but stare at their 'technology' (phones, iPads, Kindles, laptops) in any given empty moment.... they all shook their heads.

No.

I told them there were four entire trains with people on board, missing. There is a village of 10,000... gone. You could see them trying to parse it, as I had.

.......


I came across these. So much is hard in my life right now and when it's devastation began it only took about an hour. But what if my world were LITERALLY swept away within an hour? And I was left walking through, well nothing... with only a plastic shopping bag of things in my hand?

Watching the videos I notice the birds. What did they or didn't they know? Sense? They could stay aloft, see the difference, fly to dry land.

It makes me think of 911, though this is different and geographically so much larger. But I think the comparison is good, because I realize that their sorrow could be ours. That it is ours; and ours... that day almost ten years ago... was most likely, theirs.









As I was clicking through the pictures I thought these were books. For some reason, fallen books always capture photographers attention.



Not so much. They are cargo carriers.







Just..... nothing.