When I am out on our backyard deck, writing or listening to music, I have taken to bringing binoculars along with me. The topography out there is a long bike/walk pathway between two widely spaced rows of houses. The path is lined with a variety of trees, grasses, and shrubs, providing cover and in some instances food, for birds.
It is not a rare thing for me to see a species new to me, as only yesterday when a Say’s phoebe perched on the arm of one of our lawn chairs and remained there calm as anything for a long minute.
Later that same afternoon I was talking to Robin when a bird hawk swooped behind her and was out of sight in an instant, gone between the houses. I had only a nano-moment for identification but I think it was a Cooper’s hawk, perhaps after prey. Three-quarters of this hawk’s diet consists of other birds.
It can be quite an aviary out there.
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Back a few years I read some of the poet Gary Snyder’s prose that left a mark. He was talking about how important having roots or a sense of place was to the development of our spirits, and how often modern life disallowed that.
We take it for granted that we will move every few years because of the demands of our jobs, that our children will live hundreds if not thousands of miles away. The chance to put down those roots can be diminished or lost altogether.
When I read Snyder’s work I realized that this was largely how my own life had unfolded. I then resolved to dig in more and to set my heels deeper wherever I happened to be.
Now I’ve reached a place where I want to know where the creeks are, where the canyons lead, what creatures I am sharing this space with. I will try to learn the names of the flowers, one at a time.
When I retired, people would immediately ask if I was going to “travel” and where I planned to go. As if that were a given.
To me it was always my choice to deepen my knowledge of where I already was than travel briefly to distant places and come away with a more superficial understanding of them.
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From all the mentions of camping, hiking, etc. throughout the years on this blog, you might think that I came from “camping people.” Nothing could be further from the truth. None of my “people” were campers, except for those who served in WWII, and most of them came back having had their fill of sleeping in tents.
I bought my first tent from a medical school classmate for $10. It was a highly used structure, looking like the one in the photo. The center pole was on the inside, which meant that you bumped into it constantly, and if you hit it too hard it collapsed and the roof dropped down three feet.
The next one was ordered from a well-known outfitter named Herter’s, out of Waseca MN. It was a pup tent style, and according to the blurb in the catalog it was six feet long. That seemed okay, since I have never been taller than 5 2/3 feet tall. After setting it up for the first time in a Minnesota state park, I climbed inside and found that it was really a 5 1/2 foot-long thing, which meant that I would forever sleep slightly bunched up.
I put up with that for one year and then ordered one with more generous proportions. When I returned to that same park, I thoughtlessly brought the food into the tent with us, not enclosed in a hard container. During the night I heard some rustling and growling noises. Turning a flashlight beam on the origin of the sounds I was startled to see a furry arm reach through a newly-chewed hole in the tent wall and grab a slice of bread. When the arm retracted the bread vanished from view.
I stood up, flashlight in hand, and stepped out of the tent to shoo the creature away and found myself standing barefoot in my briefs in the middle of a herd of what seemed to be giant raccoons, who were busy rummaging through the campsite and eating my bread.
All those bright eyes reflecting back at me in the light of the torch left me feeling that way too much tender flesh was exposed, and I retreated back into the tent while ceding the evening and whatever they could find to these critters.
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Robin and I watched the Hunter Biden saga with sorrowful interest. I think the best piece I’ve yet read came from Patti Davis, and was published in the NYTimes on Wednesday June 12. Ms. Davis is an actor, author, daughter of a president, and an addict in recovery. She has a unique perspective and a talent for writing as well.
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Proud Sponsor of the first 2024 presidential debate.
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* Apologies to Anne Lamott for pilfering the title of her fine book
Little Home In The Valley 