Eagle in Flight

Eagle in Flight

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I knew at once it was something different: longer, stronger, taking up more of the sky.  Broad wings, white head and tail with a supple, muscular stroke. It was over my head and beyond me before I had a good glimpse, but I knew at once this was no hawk.

In a few wing beats it was two houses away, hundreds of feet above me. With shaded eyes I watched it soar out of sight. Surely it was an eagle. I knew of nothing else that would be that imposing, that confident in the sky.

No more than two minutes later the bird was above me once again. It must have turned left at the woods and circled round. Now I had a clearer look, could observe the long, steady flap of those black wings, could be sure that the head was white. Though it was no doubt looking for food, it was calm and unhurried — out for the avian version of a Sunday drive.

I have seen eagles at the lake, at the beach and on a trip to Alaska. But never before had I seen one over the house. It was a good way to usher in the new year, glimpsing such a wild thing in flight. I thought of a passage from Henry Beston’s Outermost House, describing a flock of swans: “Their passing was more than music, and from their wings descended the old loveliness of earth which both affirms and heals.”

Photo:  AnimalFactsGuide.com

Day Two

Day Two

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When faced with a few days of uninterrupted time I sometimes panic. I take a walk, go to the movies, make a call.

Distraction is my currency. I live with it; sometimes on it (sad to say). And the prospect of giving it up is enough to make me create unnecessary distractions of my own.

The job, the commute, the tasks of daily living — these are necessary. Endless tidying and Googling are not.

But eventually I come around, assisted by a pen and paper, an empty screen, a good book.

That is what happened yesterday into today. I read a book (more on that in a future post). I wrote pages in my journal — enough to complete one blank book, so that (I admit a tad sheepishly and obsessively) I could begin a new one on January 1. And I still had time to spend in idle thought.

It’s a quiet way to see in the new year, quiet and necessary.

Day One

Day One

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The first day was a late one, so this post is late, too. But I’m determined to push “publish” while it’s still light outside.

It’s a cold and cloudy start to 2016, a day that could actually be called wintry after so many warm ones. The sun, still timid, is lost in the clouds. The trees arch bravely over a newly cleared backyard. 

I’ve spent hours reading and writing and thinking about this new year, what it might offer, how I might shape it. And now, I’ll do what I usually do when I’ve thought too much: I’ll lace up my shoes, grab my iPod and take to the streets. A walk — that’s what will make this first day right.

Year’s End

Year’s End

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Yesterday the end of the trail. Today the end of the year. But the sun is out, and it feels like a day of promise, one that could just as easily be a first rather than a last. But it is a last. The end of a long, hard year. Also the end of a year of wonder and fulfillment. A trip to Africa! A son-in-law!

As I take stock of 2015, though, I can’t say I’m sad to see it go. It was the last year Mom was on this earth. It was a time of challenge at work. I’ve had better years.

Still, I’ve had space these last few days to catch my breath, to write and think. And that means I can see the patterns a little better than I did before. I have a little more faith that I can right myself.

Maybe that’s what holidays do for us, especially this megalopolis of holidays. It gives us the time to see where we’ve been, dream of where we might be going.

Trail’s End

Trail’s End

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I found it sooner than I thought, the southern terminus of the Cross County Trail. Found it and savored it, this beautiful spot along the Occoquan, a place where water meets land. The southern tip of Fairfax County.

I’ve followed the trail more than 40 miles, from the falls of the Potomac along Difficult Run to these placid waters. It was a long walk, a walk of many segments, and now that I’ve completed it all I can think of is how I’ll do it next time.

It’s a good thing to feel at the end a journey: the urge to begin again.

Tree Sitting

Tree Sitting

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The presents are unwrapped. The cookies are eaten. The rain (not snow) is falling. But here inside the living room the tree is as splendid as it was when we decorated it last week. The lights illuminate the shiny ornaments and bring unaccustomed brightness to what is usually a dark corner.

Here we are in the final hours of the year, and all I want to do is sit in front of the tree, absorb its holiday happiness, gather in its aroma, stare at its baubles and glass. I notice its one errant limb that really should have been trimmed. Decide to leave it as it is. The tree looks like it’s waving.

It has taken so long to get here, to this Christmas moment.

Outside, a female cardinal hops over to the suet block. Rain makes puddles on the deck boards. Trees shift slowly in the breeze.

Inside, it is warmth and light. Inside it is Christmas. Today will be reading and errands and cooking. But it will also be tree sitting. Tree savoring.

Appreciation

Appreciation

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Once again the days have passed, the splendid ones and the trying
ones. Once again we’ve come back to this point, which is for me, and for
many, the great pause. Christmas Eve. Christmas Day. New Year’s. Once
again I’ll re-run this blog post, one I wrote in 2011, which was, I now
know, the last holiday Mom and Dad would spend together in this house.  All the more
reason for appreciation:


12/24/11

Our
old house has seen better days. The siding is dented, the walkway is
cracked, the yard is muddy and tracked with Copper’s paw prints. Inside
is one of the fullest and most aromatic trees we’ve ever chopped down.
Cards line the mantel, the fridge is so full it takes ten minutes to
find the cream cheese. Which is to say we are as ready as we will ever
be. The family is gathering. I need to make one more trip to the grocery
store.

This morning I thought about a scene from one of my
favorite Christmas movies, one I hope we’ll have time to watch in the
next few days. In “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Jimmy Stewart has just
learned he faces bank fraud and prison, and as he comes home beside
himself with worry, he grabs the knob of the banister in his old house — and it comes off in his hand. He is exasperated at this; it seems to represent his failures and shortcomings.

By
the end of the movie, after he’s been visited by an angel, after his
family and friends have rallied around him in an unprecedented way,
after he’s had a chance to see what the world would have been like
without him — he grabs the banister knob again. And once again, it
comes off in his hand. But this time, he kisses it. The house is still
cold and drafty and in need of repair. But it has been sanctified by
friendship and love and solidarity.

Christmas doesn’t take away
our problems. But it counters them with joy. It reminds us to appreciate
the humble, familiar things that surround us every day, and to draw
strength from the people we love. And surely there is a bit of the
miraculous in that.

Photo: Flow TV

Every Valley

Every Valley

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The world doesn’t go away just because the holidays are here.  Even the most stubborn optimist must sometimes remove the rose-tinted glasses.

Mine were most decidedly not on this morning as I was working in a quick run before the rain started up again. When the mostly all-carols classical station switched over to a sedate Haydn number I switched my little iPod mini from radio to music. I needed a Messiah fix!

“Every valley shall be exalted,” sang the tenor. “And every mountain and hill made low; the crooked straight and the rough places plain.” At “crooked,” he warbled between notes. At “straight” he rang out true and bold.

I thought of all the souls these words have comforted through the centuries. I thought of how they were comforting me this morning. Every valley exalted. Yes!

Officially Christmas

Officially Christmas

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It’s the return of an old friend. An acquaintance you might be a bit embarrassed knowing. But it’s back — and it’s beautiful.

I speak of tinsel.

It’s not what the stylish trees are wearing this holiday season. It’s messy and flimsy. It lodges itself in every corner of the living room. But it’s Suzanne’s favorite holiday accessory, and now that she’s back … it’s back, too.

So I’m sitting here looking at the stuff, the way it reflects the light; the sheer, stringy wonder of it; how it amplifies the glitter of the holiday, its shiny appeal.

Without it, the tree still retains some connection to the soil that gave it birth. With it, the tree has stepped over the line. It is officially artifice. It is officially wonder.

It is officially Christmas.

Reconfigured

Reconfigured

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The tree is up, a big fir that fills the house with fragrance — and overflows the corner it’s been assigned.

I sit down to write my post but first must move the rocking chair to the other side of the room, in front of the hutch. There now … that’s better.

To fit the tree we must reconfigure. The console moves into the hall and becomes a convenient flat surface to decorate — but also to pile the stuff that needs to be taken upstairs.

The rocking chair, parked where it is now,  reminds me of a Christmas 22 years ago, when Claire was a toddler and had begun waking up at 5 in the morning for some strange reason (an excess of exuberance?). We would sit in another (long since dispatched to the basement) chair in front of that same hutch and read the holiday books — Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, The Night Before Christmas.

If I close my eyes I can almost feel Claire’s squirmy little body in my arms. I would have been drop-dead tired, of course. But even then I knew those moments were precious.

Reconfiguration: It’s what we need. It’s what holidays help us do.