Alexandersmap

    Tag: change

    • Hummingbirds Squeak under a Waning Moon… and Other Observations

      Cool enough for a fleece this morning. It seems summer is tilting away faster by the day. The white noise buzz of crickets fills in. Other sounds penetrate. Cars in the distance getting an early start. Birds like my old friend the Brown Thrasher announce their presence, if further away than in July.

      The mornings are especially active now. The bees and hummingbirds flitter from honeysuckle to basil gone to flower and on to the next. Each have a unique sound; not shockingly bees buzz and hummingbirds, well, their wings hum as they zip by you. I smile when the hummingbirds squeak at each other, a chorus of animated bird banter filling the yard. They largely ignore me as I sip coffee and take in the show. As if to mirror them, the squirrels are jumping tree to tree dropping acorns and hickory nuts that thump to the ground for collection later. Two scratch around my favorite white oak tree on the planet, chasing each other in young squirrel frivolity with their own chirping chorus.

      Looking up, the Waning Crescent moon greets me in a crisp blue sky. This is September blue, always embedded on my mind these last 18 years, a reference point anyone around here that day will understand. A reference point from New England to New Jersey. That day remembered in random moments like this, then gently put aside. There’s a collective joy about September in New England, with an undercurrent of sadness for the summer fading away and change in the air. But it’s still August, even if it feels like we’ve crossed. Seasons come and go, and it feels time for summer to move along too.

      Back on earth, there are a few more tomatoes to harvest, a thriving and ironic grape harvest after my public shaming in the spring, fading flowers and herbs to contend with. Like the squirrels I’ve got to get my act together and do some work to prepare for the cooler days and changes ahead. My fingers are cold from sitting outside a layer short of comfortable. Time to move. So much to do and it stirs a restlessness inside of me. But first another coffee.

    • State Change

      Everything has changed. Well almost everything. New sounds; I’ve never heard that dog bark before. The rumble and back-up beeping of construction equipment is new too. Seems to be road work happening at the top of the hill. A young squirrel is working the oak tree in the neighbors’ yard and there’s a constant drip of acorns plummeting through the leaves and thumping onto the ground.  Seems early for the dropping acorns but the squirrel seems to know more than I do about the matter.

      Some birds remain, like the brown thrasher I spent all summer trying to figure out. But the bluebirds are gone, and with them the feeling of early summer. Some new birds sing but I can’t place them. Migrating from someplace to another destination, with a quick stop in my neighborhood. I don’t know birds like I know some other things. But the more I know about anything the less I seem to know about that very thing.  Such is the way of the world.  I’ve learned to respect the journey of self-education, and hate myself for falling into the trap of thinking I know everything about anything.  Worse still is acting so.  Better to be open to the world around you; a sponge not a bullhorn.  There are far too many bullhorns already.

      Autumn is in the air. I felt it on Buzzards Bay as the winds shifted. This is first day of school bus stop air, and we aren’t yet halfway through August. And here in New Hampshire with the cool, humid air and white noise background buzz of crickets singing their late summer song.  Getting outside away from media opens the senses and the mind alike.  But other changes are in the air. A quarter of the family flying to London soon state change kind of air.  Another quarter entering senior year in college kind of air.  And what are we doing in this big house with all this stuff kind of air.

      Gone for a week and everything is different.  It would have been different if I’d been here too, but the daily gradual change isn’t noticed the way it is when you step away for a bit. Everything changes constantly. And so do I. A little for the better in some ways, a little for the worse in others, but generally more growth than decline. We all know what the ultimate end game is, but that doesn’t mean you have to live like you’re dead already. I know too many people who live in virtual bubble wrap, watching the world pass them by. I want to shake them loose, and whatever cobwebs I’ve grown myself, and shout “Embrace the changes; there’s magic in the air if you’ll only feel it!”

      I have a drive to Connecticut to get to.  That drive brings me from New Hampshire through Massachusetts to Connecticut, then the reverse this evening for the drive back.  Four hour round trip drive time, and more like seven hours with meetings thrown in the mix.  I could probably stay overnight in Connecticut, but there are compelling reasons to get back home this week, and so I’ll do the round trip instead.  My state change is both literal and figurative today.  But I do enjoy the journey.