TGIF. This is one of those Fridays when I sank to the sofa to eat an early dinner then came back to my room, sat on my bed to write my blog and woke up 30 minutes later. I am now in my jammies, determined to write of simple blessings and gratitude before turning out the light and going to sleep. We shall see if I accomplish my goal of 9:30 p.m. I am exhausted and grateful for the impending weekend. Last Saturday I worked all day and got little rest the entire weekend, so I feel that much more tired today. I generally set my alarm for 7:30 a.m. on weekends, but I just might turn it off tomorrow. We shall see how I feel.
Tonight I am grateful simply to be here relaxing. It was a beautiful day here and while I was at work, outside walking from one building to another, I heard a birdsong (uh oh) that I had heard many times but previously not identified. I happened to be walking with two other people at the time, but was able to glance up just as the bird whistled again. Lo and behold it was a bird I’d already recognized from the feeder: the tufted titmouse. I had seen the perky little bird at the feeder many times, but had never known its call, and had heard the call many times but never associated it with the titmouse. These little mysteries and their subsequent resolutions give me great pleasure and satisfaction, and as a bird nerd, I am pleased to make yet another connection–that’s two in one week. There’s another mystery bird whose song penetrates the fog of my early morning journal writing. I haven’t seen it yet: it seems only to sing in the early morning. By the time I’m outside walking the dog, it has long since quieted or moved on to sing elsewhere in the neighborhood. I’ll look forward to finding out more about that one too.
TT at my feeder, March 2013
This blog is not titled, “Lessons in Bird Identification,” so I suppose I should offer a few words about gratitude. I am grateful for the solace that I find in nature and the sweet distraction of discovering new information about a subject I have come to love. No matter what kind of mood I’m in, I nevertheless can get caught in keen, attentive listening to an unfamiliar bird call and be carried into a different space. Yesterday as I neared my house after nearly two hours of frustrating commute I saw the neighborhood Canada geese that hang out around a pond on the grounds of a rehabilitation hospital. Yesterday, I noticed for the first time the presence of yellow, fuzzy, goslings–little baby geese. “Awwwwwwww,” I exclaimed aloud and nearly stopped at the side of the road to take a picture. While not as amusing as the wild turkeys who entertained me so frequently back in California, the baby geese will be worth watching. Between the antics of the squirrels inside the tree nest and the appearance of several of the neighborhood rabbits, I’ve been completely amused and entertained by the local fauna.
I am grateful to be at rest. Finally. I am looking forward to a relaxing, relatively quiet weekend. May it be so!
