Abundance - June 2013

June at the pond.  Even if your head was bowed to miss the nearly constant ricochet of birds and the almost perceptibly growing grasses, still you would be intoxicated by the constantly changing perfumes of the blooming native shrubs and flowers. Even if your plugged-with-your-latest-shuffle ears were not startled by the fwap-fwap-fwap of the swan’s take off or enchanted by the oriole’s sweet song, still you would feel the press of the summer noons or the caress of the sunset's softest breezes. June was a feast for all the senses to savor (ok you sticklers, imagine the sweet dew on your tongue from a freshly plucked honeysuckle if you must).

It was a wet month. The Scalley Dam gushed and the pond nearly invaded the fisherman’s clearing on the causeway at times.  We had at least one heat wave, and several um, half way around the pond downpours (why does that always happen)! I was going to say that we had at least one rainbow, but as I thought about it I recall the rainbows shone at the very end of May (after I had completed the May blog posting). In passing I’ll mention that on one of the rainbow nights I came down Arlington Road from Pleasant Street and was startled by the base of a huge rainbow to the Southeast. A pillar of fire disappearing way beyond Foley Beach. Yes yes of course I had a camera with me, but by the time I pulled over and found a good vantage point, I was too late to photograph. But not too late to witness. :)

It was a month of flowers. The northern catalpa dropped her beautiful white orchid-like flowers along the causeway and at the cut-through from the Sturgis Street parking lot to Arlington Road. The spiderwort with her lance-like leaves and delicate 3 petal purple flowers graced the causeway. I’m no plant geek, so many of the other flowers in my June photo files are unknown to me. If my research is correct however, walking around the lagoon you would see rambler roses, yellow iris, common choke cherry, and many others, on and on. And as one species faded, it seemed that two others were just starting to bloom.  So on the solstice the summer arrived all dressed up and ready to go, with Queen Anne’s lace making an entrance just in time to crown her. 

It was also a month of birds. My June photo files are overflowing with baby birds, fowl and otherwise. I spent many a morning watching a troupe of geese that has taken to congregating in Ice House Park on Sturgis street. I think the gaggle is wise to rest there: true the occasional uncontrolled dog might be deadly, but I suspect some other predators would avoid such a heavy human traffic area.  As the month progressed, many of the goslings morphed from fuzzy yellow-gray babies into still-peeping miniature replicas of their vigilant parents.  

Sets of mother and skittering baby ducks, who always seem to be smiling for the camera, were scattered all over the pond in June, from the area near the water treatment plant, to the lagoon, to way down back near where the swans were nesting. I never tire of seeing the alert mother watching over a pile of ducklings resting on a bank, or leading the procession across the water to their next food or shelter. Make way for ducklings!  It intrigues me that,  in contrast to geese and swans, only the mother duck raises a brood. It seems amazing that any of the little ones survive without 2 parents to help protect them, and yet obviously they do! I have seen new broods of ducklings on the pond as late as the fourth of July and certainly would welcome the chance to photograph more newborns this year.

Many other bird families called the pond home in June. Babies urgently calling to be fed until their parents either arrive or sound an alarm call, and parent birds rushing back and forth, often with their mouths full of luscious bugs and berries, for their families. I saw this very patient fuzzy headed Grackle fledgling on the causeway one morning, squawking for his breakfast!  

I have kept tabs, as many have, on the swan family, with 3 cygnets, way down back.  I will phrase my monthly update in an optimistic way by reporting that one of the cygnets still survived as of the end of June. It is a tough life for a swan after all, so it is something of a miracle that one has made it this far. Every day is a blessing.  On a late June morning I saw that the family had migrated to the lagoon and, as I watched, Mr. Swan checked out the causeway.  He always surprises me with his height when he ventures onto the land. And he appears more clumsy but is no less imposing than he is on the water. After a little reconnaissance, he led his family overland to the main pond, joining 5 or 6 other swans who have (to my delight) recently arrived on the main part of the pond. Of course they can be kind of territorial and hissy occasionally, but still I am always awed by their beauty. There is nothing quite like the sight of a big male with his 'sails up', using the wind to carry him so regally across the water, or the incredible sight and sound of wings hitting the water as they take off and the viz-viz-viz as they pass overhead. 

Other creatures joined in the June parade in force. The colorful painted turtle, the ever curious chipmunk, an abundance of bunnies, and of course a lot of people too! More bikers, walkers, runners, folks pushing baby carriages out enjoying the glorious long days. In addition, the Woburn Lion’s Club did a great job providing a festive atmosphere and fun activities for their third annual Horn Pond Day (http://www.sciwoburn.org/category/tags/horn-pond-day). Nature cooperated too, providing a beautiful sunny summer day for the event. 

Finally, I'm excited to report glimpses of our too infrequent visitor, the beautiful and sleek cedar waxwing. The second time I saw them this month it appeared they were gathering twigs, so perhaps they will stay awhile. :) 

So there you have it, the June report. The procession of abundance this month was incredible: different weather, plants, birds, wildlife. Seeing the waxwings again (which I haven't seen since the winter) got me to reflect also on the other months here at the pond. My first post (Gratitude - Nov.2012) also included a waxwing photo and story and, in re-reading that post, I was happy to find a sense of abundance there too, on the cold doorstep of winter. I understandably went on and on in this post about June's over-the-top sensory feast, and the ever-changing abundance of plant and animal life: but November had the eagle, the fledgling waxwings, the bones of trees, and the glistening frost. Each month has her own particular charms, and we all have our preferences (more on that in my next blog post) and that is fine too. These days for example I'm particularly happy to NOT be wearing 2 pairs of pants, yards of strategically layered fabrics, boots, silk glove liners, hand warmers, a purple face mask, and a knit hat over my baseball cap! And happy that I can still find my way around the pond in the orange light of an 8pm sunset. Best I figure to just enjoy this parade of gifts, to appreciate each one as it passes and be grateful, knowing there are always more to come. So these days I throw on my sneakers, sling on my pack, and lope down the hill in the easy sunshine to a green pond, and into the open arms of sweet summer.  I hope you can too. :)

A Gradual Rebirth - May 2013

A lot has happened at the pond this month. I know I know, I say that every month but at the edges of the transition seasons it’s especially true. The Pond’s rebirth is a gradual one, allowing us the joy of bearing witness over many days. In looking at my May photo files, I’m struck by how the early May leaflets exploded into Memorial Day weekend lushness, providing camouflage for the grateful birds and their delicate cups of new life.  The next 2 photos of the causeway illustrate the transformation: the first was taken on May 2^nd, the second on May 24. 

 

As you can see, things have filled in nicely. Consequently toward the end of the month my photo files have fewer unobstructed bird shots, but that's a small price to pay for spring!  It had been a wet and foggy last part of the month, but the very end of the month is hot and humid, leading to even more acceleration of plant growth. The pond has the feel and look of a rain forest these days and that’s fine with me except for the boom in the mosquito population!  I console myself with DEET and the recognition that this time of year a new kind of flower greets every day.

We are welcoming back many more of our bird friends this month. The beloved red winged blackbird sings his familiar song from causeway and from the cattails down back. The orioles are back too, and my friend the chatty catbird, the little kinglet with his crazy song, the warblers, the yellow goldfinch, and many others. The tree swallow tries in vain to lift the swan’s bigger feathers from the water, but occasionally finds a manageably-sized prize to feather her nest.

I have enjoyed the return of several of the human visitors, familiar to me, to the pond as well. There is something nice about seeing the same people walking the pond morning after morning.  Folks often smile and say good morning here – my cousin actually refers to our pond as “Good Morning Pond” because of this. Every once in a while someone will strike up a conversation – what did I see today, or where did the spring go, some little pleasantry that gives me a better sense of who they are.  Since my work by necessity has me parked in a cubicle most of the day, I am grateful for the interaction with both nature and humans that the pond provides. And I feel a sense of community with the folks here. We may come down for different reasons - a place to escape to, to chat with a friend, to run around, or to experience a sense of peace and beauty - but the common thread that binds us is an appreciation for the many gifts our little gem of a pond provides.

Many have been anticipating the arrival of the spring baby birds, and have been checking on the swans’ nest way down back.  While watching the mother tenderly fuss over her eggs I’d hum a snippet from Amy Beach’s Peter Pan: 

“When the patient mother bird

Broodeth o’er each little one

Does she long to breathe a word

Of blue sky and golden sun?” 

(Peter Pan (after J. Andrews) for female Chorus and Piano, Boston 1923). 

Eventually we were rewarded with the sight of 3 adorable little cygnets gliding alongside their regal parents. Whoever wrote “The Ugly Duckling” obviously had never seen a cygnet. Precious and innocent, they depend on their folks’ vigilance, their own rapidly developing sensibility, and a huge dose of luck to survive. 

There are lots of other cute new arrivals at the pond. I heard at a party the other day that looking at a baby animal for 30 seconds improved people's moods. When I googled about this, I also saw a study that suggested it could make one more productive at work (see "The Power of Kawaii, http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0046362). Double bonus! Have a look at this cute little duckling and improve your day. :)

Of course anyone who has spent time at the pond has seen that not all these precious newborns make it. Those of you who know me have heard me rail against the suffering built into Mother Nature's balance sheet of predator and prey. But as we always have a chance to choose our perspective, today I choose to focus on the absolute miracle that new life is, what a pleasure to behold. I wish the babies well.

So yes, as always the pond is changing - new flowers, new babies, the gradual change in seasons. It’s good to see that things change and that they can change rapidly yet the pond takes it all in stride. Something for us to aspire to perhaps, to remain constant whether we are in a historic February storm or on a bench in a soft spring breeze. To know that whether life feels good or bad that it will change and can change quickly, to rejoice in and appreciate the good without holding on, and to hold on when things are bad because we know that feeling good can return.  The cycle of life continues for us, and after us. In the meantime, the breeze is soft right now, the pond is alive with sights sounds and smells, so we may as well take a deep breath and join the sparrows in their joyous song: Spring spring spring!

We Are Everyone - April 2013

This month was supposed to be an upbeat and breezy blog. After all, April was here, we were all starting to thaw out, and an abundance of life was returning to the pond. I had tentatively titled the posting “Two By Two” because I was struck by all the paired off critters gracing the pond. Geese, ducks, swans and occasional young couples in short sleeves – certainly spring was here.  The many returning robins proclaimed as much with their caroling song. I was happy for their return, and the return of the goldfinch, red wing black birds, king birds, grackle, wood peckers and others. It was a great time for photography as the birds were back, but the leaves hadn't fully emerged to hide them yet. And it was a busy time, with lots of folks coming out to walk, bike, fish and in general celebrate the good weather. We even had a film crew at the Clapp School, leading to a carnival atmosphere and occasional traffic jams on a sunny and summer-like April 9th.

Unfortunately, our light and breezy April, and all of us, were changed by the events of April 15th. As with the Challenger disaster, the explosion of the Columbia, and of course September 11th, we will forever remember where we were when we heard of the Boston Marathon bombing. We will remember the frantic phone calls we made, or being glued to facebook trying to get word that a friend or loved one was safe. The horrific images of the dead or maimed being carried out of the blast zone hollowed out our bellies. Some of us or our loved ones were injured. And certainly as the days passed, even if we weren't directly affected we likely learned that someone we knew knew someone that was injured – a friend of a friend’s leg was blown off, a friend’s client can’t hear out of one ear.  And how strange to learn that the dead and maimed figuratively lay all around us – residents of 'safe places' like Woburn, Winchester, Wakefield, Medford, Arlington.

What has stayed so strongly with me since the bombing is that it could have been any one of us, or any one of our loved ones. Some of us have even stood on that spot at previous marathons, or were planning to be at the finish line this year but got called away. The Fates chose randomly -  people just standing in the wrong place at the wrong time - and now their lives have either ended or have changed dramatically, and forever. Krystal Campbell, Martin Richards, Lu Lynne, Jeff Bauman, Roseann Sdoia, they are the every man and every woman. It is only by chance that you or I weren’t standing where they were standing that day. As so as so often happens in times of tragedy, the country came together with empathy and compassion to support the ones that could have been any of us, in an event that threatened us all. 

Because of the bombings it perhaps is not widely known that there was another, even more local tragedy that day. A canoe capsized down the pond that same Monday night and only one of the 2 occupants was found and rescued. The many blue and red lights twirling out of the pond’s dusk seemed an eerie reflection of what was happening in Boston.  No one goes out on a holiday canoe ride and thinks that they won’t come back. No one goes out to a holiday road race and thinks that they won’t come back.

 
The pond is calming to me, so that week I tried to get down there as soon after the bombing as I could. The day I made it down there, the wind seemed to be trying to scour everything clean, and distracted us with the seagulls wheeling over the causeway and our hair wheeling around our heads. Distracting us to give our hearts a break. The robins were there too and were a welcome balm to me. I remembered that Christian folklore sees the robin as the good Samaritan and visionary of the bird world. Supposedly the robin tried to ease Jesus’ agony on the cross by pulling a thorn out of his forehead, Jesus’ blood staining the bird’s breast red and blessing it. As I walked Gov. Patrick's words echoed in my ears, “the grace this tragedy exposed is the best of who we are”. Goodness and bravery and compassion  can shine through the worst of times and the robin’s presence comforted me and reminded me to be grateful for the good now and for the possibility of a better future.

In my as yet unpublished February blog, in an ‘imagined chat’ the heron bluntly points out that we are all at risk, but that humans try to insulate themselves from risk and pretend they are safe.  And of course he’s right but the bombing made it clear that there is no such thing as safe. The heron admonished me that owning risk makes us more grateful and kinder to each other, not so tied up with petty things. I think he’s right about that too – after the bombings fewer horns were honked, fewer swears were expelled, more doors were held open. When I saw the heron late on the week of the bombing he had dropped his typical regal air and, presenting himself wings down, exposed his scrawny-looking underside. (Different sources have labeled this behavior ‘gular fluttering’, a method of cooling on hot days, but as I recall that day was not hot at all.)  You, Heron, mighty symbol of self-reliance and self-determination, displaying the vulnerability you are wise enough to own. A vulnerability we share, but maybe try to insulate ourselves from and forget, until a tragedy reminds us.

There is time to protect ourselves of course, and mourn and regroup.  Time for empathy and compassion and support towards the ones that were hurt, feeling their pain, letting them know they are not alone. We realize it could have been any one of us and we try to treat them as we would have liked to have been treated. Yet time passes and wounds heal, and maybe not right away, but when the time is right we venture out again. The air so light and breezy still waits for us and embraces us, with our new scars and all.   The heron stalks into the water to fish, and the robin peers earnestly into the future, seeing perhaps a better tomorrow. 

placeholder2 - March

Hopefully soon!

placeholder1 Feb

Almost ready!

The Waiting List - January 2013

As usual, January was a month of contrasts down the pond. Daily lows ranged from about  0 to 40 degrees, daily highs from about 10 to 60 I’m guessing. Welcome to a New England January! The January thaws this year could be measured both by the thermometer and the wax and wane of the ice on the pond. (I am desperately resisting the “the moon at our feet” metaphor).  

To some extent aches and pains in January have kept me from my usual morning walks, but my twice daily drives by the pond helped me keep tabs on what was going on. On fine days in the early part of the month, the icy snow was the softest baby blue and white coverlet over the water. That cover was pulled back somewhat during the first January thaw, revealing such a surprisingly choppy navy blue that I wondered if the sleepy turtles and frogs were disturbed beneath. The rest of the month was a contest between snow, water and ice to see which would win the pond. It went back and forth, back and forth, but by the end of the month most of the main pond and all of the lagoon was under a blanket again, except this time it was the steely gray blanket forming from below. Because of all the freeze/thaw cycles the ice is very different than what I showed you last month: during the thaw there were crazy neuron-shaped cracks in the ice, and by the end of the month, especially along the edges of the lagoon, the ice was pock marked like a lunar landscape (shoot there’s that pesky moon metaphor again!).  

My January photo files are a bit thin, but in reviewing them I can see how much the days varied. Fine days, snowy days, foggy days, rainy days and snowy/icy/bare land and water - I would sometimes gasp taking the turn to come down Richardson street, as the pond came into view. It is hard to get bored when each day the view is so beautifully different. 

The birds seemed to adjust well to January's meteorological roller coaster. Off the water, the jay, cardinal, cheery chickadee, occasional robin and other small birds amazed me with their survival. On the water, the mergansers are still here, along with geese, ducks and coots.  Avian groups crowd the bare patches of water at the edges of the pond,  sometimes venturing onto the shore where the coots display their impossibly big feet. I haven’t seen the same daily flocks of geese at the pond as I saw last month, but occasionally I see a gaggle I think will fly. I still wait for them some, although for fewer minutes than earlier in the season: toe numbing comes more quickly these mornings when the temperatures dip near zero degrees.   It is always a blessing to be down the pond, but I feel especially blessed by the sometimes comical, sometimes graceful, but always exhilarating sight of the geese taking off, heading for the enviable unknown.

I touched on waiting in my Christmas post, “The Perfect Present”, but didn't explore the cognitive dissonance I was feeling between living totally in the present and waiting.  Because waiting implies future right? And also the past right because oftentimes you want or don't want something to happen based on what has or hasn't happened in the past? Hmmmm is this waiting stuff the thing that's keeping me from finding my Bodhi tree? Somehow that doesn't seem quite right, especially down the pond, so let me think aloud below.

To my mind the past and future are intimately connected with waiting and in the case of the geese are part of the reason why I wait. Down the pond, watching the geese hundreds of times in the past has shown me that I like when they fly, and helps me to know if this particular gaggle is likely to fly soon. If they do fly, the hundreds of times I’ve photographed them before helps me set the camera to capture them in focus. The future helps me too, nagging that the 9am meeting at the office puts a hard stop on how long I can wait to see a flight. 

So so far the past and future seem to be beneficial in the waiting process. Still undeniably waiting is sometimes a pain when the past and future influence us in a different way. Eckert Tolle in his book The Power of Now says “Waiting is a state of mind. Basically, it means that you want the future; you don't want the present. You don't want what you've got, and you want what you haven't got.” Reading that reminds me of my hour and a half wait for a doctor's appointment a few weeks ago where I fumed and fussed and thought about the 2 hours of work I was missing that I would need to make up that night instead of the planned house cleaning and how could these people not have their act together after being in business for 2 years and for god's sakes all they have for magazines is Sports Illustrated and Family Circle and harumph I have stuff to do goddammit! I was in such a snit that if George Clooney had walked into the office and sat next to me I wonder if I would have been present enough to notice. Yup, in the context of waiting at the doctor's office Tolle's words made total sense both to me and to my righteous indignation.  I wanted what I didn't have and that hour and a half of present moments that I wasted was only valuable in helping convince me to seek another way. 

Down the pond Tolle's words make less sense to me, and that's maybe where the gold lies in this. Although I was waiting for and wanting an explosion of geese in flight (in a hopefully pre-frostbitten future please!), the quality of waiting was different. I am never more in the moment than I am behind the lens here, and I guess that's the key to why my time at the pond, even while waiting, is so meditative and calming to me.  Camera settings are based on what conditions are like right now, how the birds are behaving right now. As they move, as the sun comes out from behind the cloud, things change moment to moment and the photographer has to adjust moment to moment or fail (or at least pay the price in Photoshop purgatory!). Being in the moment alerts me to the bigger picture too so I pull the lens back, hear sounds of other birds, feel the wind.  More and more I can notice and be delighted by other happenings at the pond, like the fog rolling in, even while I wait for the geese to fly and even if they don't fly at all. So, to paraphrase Mr. Tolle, down the pond it seems that I want both what I have in the present and what potentially might occur in the future.
 


So it seems that waiting doesn't wreck my chances at finding enlightenment after all, so long as the past and future inform but don't consume the present moment. This seems pretty easy down the pond waiting for the geese to fly, but I could always improve on it there, and elsewhere I need lots of practice with this model and practice will require lots of effort and creativity. For instance let me replay my doctor's appointment from a few weeks ago. Sitting there, to stay present I could have made a mental list of all I was grateful for in that moment - breathing (always number 1 on my list!), a healthy body, lots of love in my life, that the Red Sox broke the curse of the Bambino, etc.  Or I could have developed my eye as a photographer by finding all the triangle shapes in the room, or by examining how the light fell on all the dour faces waiting there. Or I could have had a Kindle at the ready. Ideas for staying present are plentiful when I am calm with an open unexasperated mind, so I have decided to come up with a list, I will call it a "Waiting List", of things I can do to stay present the next time I am at the doctor's office or in a traffic jam. Doesn't that seem like a good idea?  Hopefully this practice will become a way of life and will enhance my life both down the pond and elsewhere. Or at least hopefully it will help me be present enough to notice when Georgie comes and sits next to me at my next doctor's appointment, or when the mockingbird poses so prettily in a nearby thorn bush as I wait for the geese. :)