Distraction

 

I’ve lost a good deal of time the past few days watching various birds around the house. The weather has turned cooler and the humidity has dropped below sauna and the activity level outside is up. Today a tufted titmouse pair were swinging through the magnolia searching for bugs and they didn’t notice me as I came by the window. This was behind the house where I look out from my office. Once I spotted them, I froze, and they hopped and gobbled, gobbled and hopped up and down the bush. Then a hummingbird arrived, they don’t care if I’m at the window but the titmouse (titmice?) got a number of close fly-bys and hovers. Little busy body busy-body. And then a Carolina Wren ran down the forsythia and into the little garden of sunflowers and cosmos. Lost time. I’ve gone down a number of time traps as I’ve been organizing closets and relooking what is in boxes (after so many moves and gathering of things from Oregon a couple of years ago, it was needed). I finally, finally, finally went through the pages and pages and pages of printed out poems and I know I have electronic versions so I emptied the folders and sent these things to the recycle bin. But in all this I came across things I thought I had lost, a dear poem from a dear friend written for me when I turned twenty; an essay I wrote once about poetry with single syllable words and no repeated words. Precious things my children wrote or drew, a collection of ticket stubs from various travels and museums and concerts (a headband from Bob Dylan and Carlos Santana’s 1984 World Tour – I typically wore bandana headbands then; it was thrilling to find. I saw them in Rome). Later this weekend I’ll continue through the boxes of photos. That’s the hard work. Jerry already said he wouldn’t be helping with those. These just need organized (why is a baby picture of Justine in with a picture from Krakow?) but I know I’d lose him: emotionally it is hard. And when I need a break, I’ll look out my window for some wonder and light.