Common Birds 47 - Tufted Titmouse II
Friday, October 6
I saw three or four tufted titmice today. They reminded me of my mom, these small, cute, blue-gray birds that she loves so. I remember her mom, too, who loved birds in her time and place, and I wonder if her mom loved birds, too. How far does this thread weave through my heritage? Thinking about my mom, I wonder if she felt the same exhaustion and the same deep, deep joy I do now when her first son was born. How does she parse who I am from the infant that I was?
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A cormorant fled from the pond when I arrived, slapping frenzied wings upon the water. Then I realized that the red-winged blackbirds were gone. When they’re here in the summer, they’re the ones to drive out cormorants.
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I suspect I have a strange relationship with my past. I feel a great disconnect from it. I remember books with utter clarity and facts with exhaustive accuracy, but my life is mostly forgotten. I remember flashes, moments, but no conversations, nothing much day to day, and sometimes I forget people entirely. Once at a conference, an acquaintance waved to me and, not recognizing him, I ignored him, thinking he must be waving to someone else.
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A kingfisher, blue against a red sugar maple, preens its feathers and watches the still water.
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My wife always has her camera and her planner. They let her hold the past and future close. She loves to remember and to celebrate those remembrances. I always have my monocular. It lets me look closely at the present.
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Two downy woodpeckers, a black and white female and a male with his red cap, interweave through the trees.
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I received a letter from my eighteen year old self this week. He is ten years younger than I am now. I hope I read the letter with pity, though I was closer to disappointment if not disgust. He wrote about happiness, as unhappy people often do.
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Leaves slowly fall, an early drizzle of the storm which builds all year, gathering in spring, looming as green thunderheads in summer, breaking and crashing with shocking light and color in autumn, and leaving us blasted and windswept in winter. I keep mistaking the leaves for nuthatches heading headfirst down the trees.
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He, of course, would view me with pity at best, more likely with revulsion, unable to imagine a life as a husband or father, yet more fundamentally unable to imagine a life not centered around his potentiality, around himself. He would swear he would never become me, and I try not to be too embarrassed by him, even trying to forget him, perhaps unconsciously, and the long days when I was sad and lonely and unable to acknowledge it.
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A great blue heron stood motionless in the stream. I walked by, knowing he didn’t want to be noticed and pretending that I didn't notice just to oblige him.
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I don’t remember my mom the way I imagine her now, about my age and trying to raise the child I was. If not for myself, I can feel pity and love for her. It makes me wonder who I will be to my son, when he is twenty eight. But I’m easily distracted from the past and from the future, there are birds around, and I can love him well today.
