7:04 a.m. 34 degrees, wind N 5 mph. Sky: the sun rose unnoticed behind an ocean of gray frumpish clouds; a decorative dusting of wet snow, down the veins of Christmas ferns, in the shadow of islands in the marsh, on the lawn and garden fence, the lid of the bird feeders, metal roofs, every exposed twig and half-frozen leaf. Permanent streams: flowing at a decent clip, drought in the rearview mirror. Wetlands: a reedy bowl of inactivity. Pond: four mergansers, no adult males, a sudden burst of anxiety, a hasty departure. Noses to the ground, the dogs investigate a crease in the weeds. Deep swinelike inhalations. A residue of mink?
Pileated cracks the damp silence, loud and repetitive laughter. Then, done, as abruptly as it had begun. Robins and red-breasted nuthatches conspicuous by their absence. On an evergreen teeter-totter, a chickadee, unabashedly buoyant, upside down tweezing something (other than the scent of Christmas) out of tufts of fir needles. Seventeen turkeys, more like a herd than a flock, forage around the garden and raspberry patch, chatting among themselves—a keen resemblance to dinosaurs.
This valley, this life, both specs on the North America theater. But . . . they're my specs. And every morning, no matter how dismal the weather, no matter how urgently lazy I feel, I choose enrichment and go outside. Rarely am I disappointed. Something—chickadees capering in the hardwoods, mink, rose-breasted grosbeak, yellow aspen on a bleak hillside—takes my breath away, arrests my attention, makes me appreciate life beyond my doorstep—a moment alone with the vast, gorgeous, precarious nature of Earth. What more could I ask? You, me, all of us are part of a pale green fragility.
A barrage of honks spills out of a leaden sky. Earth calls to me. Two flocks of geese one a wavering line, the other a small V . . . nowhere to go but south.