Sunday, April 17, 2011

Honk if You Like Spring

Not until the end of this past week was I able to come up for air and relax outside. With the dog, of course. Maisie and I took one of our longer walks down to the river, where it meanders under bridges and roadways, with plenty of green space and paths alongside for bikers, runners and walkers. A few miniature islands and peninsulas add visual perks for us and cool perches and nesting spots for birds.

My week had buzzed, so I sought peace and quiet – and how Mother Nature belly laughed! She used the Canada geese. They’re courting and nesting now, and stake out real estate on these little bars and banks with which to convince their lady loves that they’re husband material.

One little island had five Canada geese on it, their long black necks sticking up from the brush like periscopes. Even I could tell that this was two geese too many. From the center of it all one goose lowered his head like a half-back, his shoulders spread and braced for the impact and charged, honking like an air raid siren. Mr. Encroacher ducked and charged and honked likewise and they kind of pushed each other. The center island goose prevailed and, by chasing the other out into the water, created a DMZ.

Meanwhile, another incursion was met and rebuffed on the opposite side of the little patch of dirt and brush. Lots more honks from cheerleaders in the water. 0ur walk was punctuated by the trumpeting and the chirruping of birds of all kinds.

Like Macbeth’s witches, three cormorants huddled on some limbs overlooking the water, and having adjusted their black capes, remained silent.

Spring had another surprise – well, not really a surprise, but a reminder. Maisie was wandering around, sniffing what appeared to be amazing sniffs, and failed to see a small silvery dog approach, clearly very lame but poking around as best it could. His owner was nearby, watching. Tobey, a poodley mix, was recovering from a recent stroke and this was one of his first forays out; she reveled that he was doing, motivated perhaps by those self-same smells as held Maisie in thrall.

Julie, we’ll call the owner, shared that Tobey was about 12 or 13 when she’d adopted him, a senior rescue. She’d had him for three years when the stroke left part of his left side paralyzed. Other than the bum left leg, I only noticed a little droopiness on the left side of his mouth, but I didn’t have time to ask if that affected his eating – she was concerned to get Tobey back to the stroller she’d brought along before he used up all his strength.

As Maisie and I continued our circuit I thought about the love of life and the will to stay part of it, smells, honks, crazy mating games and all. I thought about my mom’s recent fall and recovery, her will to get back to the business of living, going where she wants to when she wants to. And I thought about Tobey, at age 16, at least as eager to get his nose into the dirt as my mother is to get close to the sweet earth of her garden. In spite of the pain, the awkwardness, and the inevitable tiredness.

Yes, I thought as I left the park, spring honks and sniffs and twitters with living, and what wonderful music that is.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Get Your Crush On


Volunteering at an animal shelter is dangerous – and I’m not talking bites and scratches – I’m talking about crazy mad crushes. Wrinkly dogs, aloof cats, watchful parakeets, or nosy rats –I crush on them all. It’s so easy to fall in love with eager eyes and paws and cocked heads. Easy to feel that you’d attain perfect (Okay, okay - purrrr-fect.) happiness if you only could bring them home.

But I’m learning about pets: animals, clean and calm and caged are like those gorgeous displays of multiple t-shirts in luscious colors. You buy one and get home and – ho-hum. One shirt, pretty, but not the effect that tickled your happy while doing retail therapy.

I think of those pretty shirts especially when I see ferrets curled in a puppy pile – adorable, snuggly – about to whirl into fun mode. You bring one home and it’s the two of you, BUT... you can’t lie curled in the fetal position all day, or toss a little ball into the night. You’re bored and the animal you love is bored, and then there’s guilt setting in. But two means twice the expense and they go a bit feral if you don’t interact with them for stretches, so guilt AND anxiety set in.

Some days the world seems divided into two groups: people who like animals and people who don’t, particularly. This is really simplistic, of course, because we fall along a broad spectrum of connection, we with myriad other animals.

What I have noticed is that as our numbers grow and grow, while the numbers of other species dwindle we seem increasingly to want to have animals close by. (Extreme animal stories abound: pet lions, tigers, and pythons- until, that is, they start behaving like animals.) But I’m talking about regular pets and long-term loving them, and how we have to get smarter about our crushes.

Our pets’ lifespans mostly are shorter than ours, so if we really love them, we take into account their training period, their reproductive lives, and their geriatric needs. To be a true animal lover, I’ve come to believe, means taking a “’til death do we part” vow. And having a plan that includes other options than euthanasia, if at all possible. (Take a close look at pet insurance plans, and also New England Pet Hospice for more information and support of your commitment.)

Loving other animals can provide spiritual deepening: humbling and heart-expanding, our pets connect us with the cosmos, its daily mysteries and endless questions. And it’s can be - should be- mutually rewarding: from us pets receive affection, care, and good health care – even dental! The richest rewards are developing understanding of one another in spite of differences in language, expression, and needs. The presence of another animal in our life is a gift for which we can show our gratitude in many ways – ‘til death parts us.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Just Wondering


There are lots of kinds of wonder – there’s the kind that lights up children’s faces at the first snowfall, at the sight of someone beloved, or at hitting the ball with a smack that says “Homerun!” There’s seeing a loved one come home, safe and sound, from war, and there’s a new parent grinning rather tentatively at their brand new wrinkled baby. Poet Mary Oliver describes the humble Carolina wren’s bold song as a source of wonder for her.

We catch this kind of wonderful faster than a cold... and then there’s the old fashioned “What the heck was that!” kind of wonder: something falls out of the sky or swirls darkly across the face of the earth making us run for our lives.

Maybe you felt this kind of wonder on hearing about birds falling from the sky this past January. According to one local paper: “Dozens of lawns, streets and rooftops for more than a mile in Beebe, Ark., were covered with the corpses of red-winged black birds. An aerial survey showed that no other dead birds were found outside that area.”

Imagine that – a square mile of bird bodies! How tragic and how weird. In ancient days, angry prophets would have found this to be a sign of some human failing. Some of us, I know, wonder if it isn’t a sign of environmental degradation that’s eroding some animal species. Some of us were grossed out and flipped the channel. The scientific among us wondered if it might have been lightning or disease. And others of us just wondered at it – all those birds just dropping out of the sky- oh my, why?

What shocked me awake was that scientists responded without alarm: they reported that hundreds of thousands of birds die each year – and not only of human-made causes.

A vivid memory: one May in 1970, staying at my grandparents’ in Walpole, I was woken just before dawn by the stirrings and then a symphony of bird song – I’ve never before or since heard so loud, long, or various an orchestration. I was very awake then, sipping my “own cup of gladness,” as poet Mary Oliver put it in “A Wren from Carolina.” My introduction to the spring migration.

It was a true wonder, herald of nothing and everything – the gift of a new day. Every spring since I listen for that symphony: I hear the redwings in the wetlands, the thrushes and robins and myriad others - many just passing through, others settling in and down for the nesting season. I haven't heard such a glorious con gusto chorale since. Grace notes, we can call them, do surprise my spirit into joy and wonder.