Walking, 1,769 consecutive (almost) days in a row at Cove Island Park at Daybreak. Like in a row.
Daylight Savings Time change has brought out the Humans. Strike 1. It’s high tide. Strike 2. No clouds. Strike 3. A trifecta signaling a poor photo day.
I walk.
The morning begins to turn. Lailah, a shepherd mix, is ahead of me. That’s her in photo above. She can smell the old guy with candy. Her Mom struggles to contain her, Lailah’s giddy with full body wiggles and a fluffy white tail frantic with anticipation.
So you were dealing with the feelings we talked about earlier, and you got to a point where you decided your life had to change. One of the things that then changed your life was birding. How did you find it? In the spring of 2023, just before I left The Atlantic, I moved to Oakland from D.C., and one thing that happened was I started paying attention to the birds around me. They were omnipresent in a way they weren’t before. On my first day in my new house, there was an Anna’s hummingbird in the garden. I would go for walks and hear birdsong: the melodious sound of a Pacific wren in a nearby redwood forest. I bought a pair of binoculars and would take it with me on neighborhood walks or hikes. I would have Merlin while I was working and look up occasionally and go: “Oh, that’s interesting. It’s an oak titmouse. I’ve never seen one before.” To me, the difference between being casually bird-curious and being an actual birder is making a specific effort to go and look at birds.
Going from passive to active. Exactly. So early September of 2023 was when I made my first trip to a local wetland to specifically look at birds and nothing else. That was, honestly, a life-changing moment.
4:00 a.m. I check the weather app: 18° F, wind speed 15 mph from the North, wind gusts up to 28 mph. Temperature feels like – 1° F. Winds from The Great White North, a reminder of Home. Add the presence of high tide, cloud cover of < 5% and there would be less-than-zero reason to be going out this morning, except one of the three requirements of a great morning trifecta being present, No Humans. Wally snuggles close, belly so warm, he snores. I tip toe out of the room, wood floors cold, body and bones resist, this Earth won’t stop spinning if I take the day off.
Last Night. Rachel asks if we would drive into the city to pick her up. Luggage, Sully, Christmas gifts, just way too much to haul solo on Metro North. The response was swift: Absolutely Not. Google Maps estimates ~90 minutes in both directions, if all goes well. Holiday traffic snarling. Tolls subject to surge pricing add to the misery. Now, why would anyone subject themselves to this? Well…It’s 8 p.m., and here I am, in the car, driving into Manhattan. Madness. 30 minutes to travel 30 miles. 60 minutes to navigate the last 10 minutes into Gotham. Think Mad Max in Thunderdome. Eastside highway traffic moving 55-70 mph, along NARROW, I mean a NARROW three lanes on something closer to a gravel country road than highway. Reach out your window and touch the yellow cab next to you. Reach out the passenger side, you’d be skimming the restraining wall of the East River. It’s less than one hour from bedtime, and here I am, bleary-eyed, hands clenching the steering wheel — the body knows, stomach cramps signaling high anxiety. I shift in my seat conscious of one errant move right or left and there is a pile up of massive proportions — followed by a 2 hour delay with cops, and accident reports. But, there’s something to prove here. Man-Child from small town Western Canada still has it — can make it on these tough streets of NYC. Cab driver behind me has his hand on the horn urging me to speed up, I’m going 60 mph. He passes giving me the bird, must be the Connecticut plates. I reciprocate with genuine kindness, turning on my high beams and tailgating him for the next mile or two, high beams flickering in his rear view mirror. Don’t mess with Country. He turns off at Exit 15. Still got it.Man-child.
4:30 a.m. I settle into my office chair. No longer reading the papers, nothing uplifting there. No longer following politics. I check the box scores. Check blog posts. Read another chapter or two, and then close my eyes reflecting on the drive into Manhattan, operating on < 5 hours sleep. “Yes, Lord, I am thankful today again for every reminder of how I have outlived my worst imagination. I will walk slowly through the garden of all that could have killed me but didn’t.” — Hanif Abdurraqib
What would constitute a satisfying day today? I think just asking the question sets one up for success. We spend a lot of time ruing the things we didn’t get done after the fact, but maybe more intention is what’s in order. How do you want to feel come bedtime? What things do you need to do, what plans do you need to make or break, in order to get there?
— Melissa Kirsch, from “Game Plans” in The Morning (NY Times, Nov 16 2024)
DK Photo. Atlantic Brants arrive at the Cove for a pit stop on their way south. 6:45 a.m. 36° F. November 16, 2024. Cove Island Park. Stamford, CT. More photos from this morning’s sunrise and the time lapse of twilight to sunrise in 18 seconds.
Emotions are high…this morning. It is a beautiful morning here. Unseasonably warm. The chickens are happy. The bees are happy. They do their chicken and bee jobs. I wrote last night that the work does not change. Temperance, magnanimity, prudence. Keep going.
DK Photo. Sunrise. 6:40 a.m. November 6 2024. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. More amazing sunrise looks from yesterday here.
Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.
