Yesterday morning, I woke up and started my day earlier than I would have liked to. Shortly after 5 am, I woke up to go to the bathroom. When I climbed back into bed, I was feeling frustrated. I tossed and turned throughout the night. As I lay there, I questioned whether another couple of hours of sleep would make much difference.There was a lot I wanted to get done this weekend and starting the day in a deficit wasn’t going to help. By 6 am, I had jumped out of bed, started coffee (“Lie to me, my friend…tell me all we’re going to do today!”), then plopped in front of my computer. Taxes, writing, website stuff, these and other things were on my list to get accomplished over the weekend, the list that seemed to grow.
It didn’t take long to put the tax preparation behind me, then I moved onto my website where I have shared some photos and stories over time. For years, I’ve had in the back of my mind to submit stories and images from my wandering and wondering. I wanted to polish my website to put my best foot forward. Since I’ve been in the I.T. world for more years than I care to share, I started with backing up my website before tinkering.
There were a number of things I wanted to tweak. Some stories that I wanted to go back and review, some images I had posted, I also wanted to put together a gallery page to show a diverse set of my work, but most of all, it was just the layout. The process of how WordPress handled images and the plugins for galleries made things sloppy in the background and didn’t show on the front end the way I wanted.
As these stories go, one thing led to another. During the process, I decided to switch themes, a template used for implementing a different design, look, and flow in the website. One thing after another just fell through and around 3:30 pm, I got a call from Lori. I had been staring, futzing with and cursing at my site since around 10:00 am. “Why don’t you stop for the day?”, she said. We talked for a little bit, then said goodbye. Two hours later, I finally threw in the towel. I was in a funk and the news of a war being launched didn’t help. Dusk was setting in and I jumped into a nice hot, long shower. I would make plans to go out for dinner – Nacho Mamas on Broad Street was drifting through my mind.
Out of the shower, clothed and heading to my car, I sent a text to Lori of an image of one of the publications I want to submit my work to. An issue of LensWork had arrived in the mail and I brought it with me to page through at dinner. After the text, I gave her a quick call. We talked and I shared about LensWork, the additional two hours I spent staring at my screen, and how I just remembered the backup I made of the site before jumping off the cliff. I would restore from backup, but not today and maybe not tomorrow.
Dinner did not disappoint and I topped it off with a quick detour to Boll Weevil – if you know, you know! I decided as I drifted off to sleep that I would make a priority of getting outside. The sun would come out in the afternoon and with a day job that has me indoors 5 days a week, 8 hours a day, time in the sun is always restorative.
I rolled out of bed this morning shortly after 8:00 am. I felt like I could use some more sleep but I wandered into my kitchen and looking out the window, I saw that a blanket of fog covered the land. I pondered shifting into fifth gear, then started putting on clothes and grabbing camera gear. It would be a perfect morning to saunter around Boyd Pond. Parking the car at the street lot, I sifted through my lenses, thinking about what I wanted to shoot with first, then headed down the walkway. The sun was out in full force, but the trees were still enshrouded by the fog. The sun wasn’t the only thing in full force. I felt as if I had stepped out into a wildlife sanctuary – the many different songs from many different birds shouted out loud!
After walking a little bit, I turned around to head back to my car. I hadn’t wanted to carry all my gear, so I decided to leave my long lens behind and some scenes before me showed that I needed that lens. Returning to the path after grabbing my lens, one of the first things that caught my eye was a woodpecker. He darted about, quickly creeping up a tree then onto the next one. I leveled my camera and tried to keep up. I continued to walk.
It wasn’t long after seeing the Downy Woodpecker that I thought of opening my birding app, Merlin. Merlin is this cool birding app that’s available for iPhones and Androids. One of the features is that you can tap Sound and it’ll record the bird songs and give suggestions on the type of bird in real time. It might not be 100% accurate, but it gives a pretty good idea about the diversity of birds all around. I’ve used this app all over, including on Maui and it’s amazing! I watched the screen scroll on by as Merlin worked feverishly to keep up with all the songs being sung. There were a number of them that I recognized and many that didn’t.
I walked along the pond, Merlin taking its notes and at 10 minutes, decided to stop the recording. My first and longest recording identified 20 different birds! I paged through the identifications as I slowly walked about the playground area and back towards the car. Carolina Wren. Red-winged Blackbird. Yellow-rumpled Warbler. And there were the woodpeckers that started me on this path. Downy Woodpecker. Pileated Woodpecker.
I had come back around the trail and was closing in on my parked car when another ‘voice’ made itself heard – a Barred Owl! I said hello as I passed by a woman and her dog, then I heard another bird call that was so unique that I had to see what Merlin would have to say. The sound continued and I knew it was really close by. Merlin didn’t disappoint. It was a Cooper’s Hawk! As I was trying to get a visual, I saw a large figure crossing above me. I lost him, then found him again. As I crossed the street, I saw him sitting on a pine limb way up high. It was almost as if he were waiting on me. I pulled out my camera and started hitting the shutter release.
What brought me out that morning was nothing less of a calling out to me. Nature’s secret weapon is seduction through its boundless beauty, each day a little different than the day before. What would be waiting for me as I walked out that door? I’m told that one part of having a daily spiritual practice is to find something that brings you peace, then commit to doing it at least for a half-hour each day. Certainly for me, going outside is one of those things that brings me peace. To some degree, I have to bring some of that with me or at least a willingness to listen and let the outside world take care of itself for a little while.
I lowered my camera and just stood there looking up at the hawk. In just a short hour, I had come across so many species, some that I could see, others that excited me just to hear their song. I could have stayed outside all morning. I crossed the street and climbed into my car, then headed back home. Pulling into the farm, I climbed out of my car and quickly heard it: birds singing out loud and leading the choir was a hawk that I knew to be a Red-shouldered Hawk. I pulled out Merlin anyway to record it for one of those days that seemed to drag on forever. Now, one day in the future, I can pull out that recording and think back to that morning jaunt and recapture the wonder of that day and feel the serenity knowing I’m not alone.