Bob always liked crows. It's the closest thing we have to the mythical raven. In the mornings he would put dry cat food on the tall stump of the oak tree that came down in the hurricane, and call for them. I can still hear his voice. "Crooooows, Crows!"
I still do that, and try to match the cadence of his calls. Normally what happens is that furry little masked bandits think that "Crow" means "Racoon" and they run over to climb up and get a snack. But sometimes I see the crows flying around and it makes me happy to see them.
I got a thrill last Tuesday. I put out the food, and actually saw one fly down and get some. Then, miracle of miracles - she flew back into a tree and fed her demanding fledgling! Tonight it got even better. I had been futzing around the house all day and thought I should try to get a walk in before dark. As I was doing my laps around the property I could hear the crows cawing overhead. Then I started to believe they were following me. I went back to the house to get some food and put it out - and sure enough, Mother Crow came down and grabbed food to take to the fledgling.
Don't know why this makes me so happy, but it does.
It's the Fourth of July, so pretty noisy out there. People are shooting off fireworks. I'm assuming that they're gathered with friends and family, eating hot dogs and hamburgers, drinking Cokes and beer. Sounds like fun. I don't seem to be involved. Partly that's my choice - I was invited to go have lunch with the family today (daytime, so no fireworks). But we've been getting some pretty heavy rains lately, and thunderstorms, and it was raining this morning and just not the sort of thing I like to take a long drive in (it's only 90 miles but it sometimes seems longer). And I didn't get invited to anything in town.
I've always been something of a loner. Not necessarily completely by choice; it's just I never seemed to have gotten the knack of making friends. I find myself thinking of school days, where recess would find me sitting somewhere with a book, and watching the other kids play. I was one of those that hated PE classes where kids would get picked for teams because I was always one of the ones who got picked last. And Bob took after his mother (his Dad was hail-fellow-well-met and would make buddies with everyone he met; his mother didn't want anything to do with anybody. It was an odd combination). And Bob and I got along so well. Over time, people that we had been friends with just sort of drifted - not that there was any real problem, just that they were busy if we ever suggested getting together. After awhile we quit suggesting. But we were OK with just each other.
I remember a day or two after we realized that he wasn't going to make it. He was resting; I was leaning my head on the windowsill and looking down at our little blue car that would soon be taking me home alone, and thinking "I guess I need to make some friends." But the pandemic has sort of taken that option away for the last year and change (although I've made some distant online friends, but no anyone to actually physically hang out with). It's been Alone Time, and I guess it will be for awhile. But sometimes I do get a little wistful when I realize that people are getting together. I've tried reaching out a couple of times but people are busy and you get the "maybe later." Fifth graders are more straightforward and just tell you to get lost but the message is similar.
Enough of that. Final brain dump of the evening involves the rainy weather we've been having lately and the resulting amount of branches falling out of the trees. Yesterday I had finished my first-thing-in-the-morning rounds of feeding the cats (and cleaning up whatever damage they did the night before, either knocking stuff over or hacking up hair balls) and going out to feed the chickens. Then I settle down to my tea and toast and morning FaceBook and suddenly there is a house shaking THWUMP and the peacocks are screaming and the cats are panicking in six different directions and it's obvious that something big has landed on the roof. Possibly there is damage.
So I shrug my shoulders, resume reading, finish my tea and toast. Whatever damage is there will still be there in a half hour. So pragmatic. Then when the rain slacks off I drag a ladder to the house, get on the roof, pull off the honkin' big branch that landed (no damage, thank goodness), and as long as I'm there sweep the leaves off the roof, and also clean out the gutters. Then clean up and put everything away.
There are those who are concerned that I climb ladders and get on the roof and do heavy work with no one else around. But that's the thing; at the moment the person I have is myself. And I'm OK with that. But sometimes it feels a little weird being that OK with it.
I was listening to music, and "Bless the Rains Down in Africa" came on. I was struck by the lyrics:
"I seek to cure what's deep inside, frightened by this thing that I've become."
No comments:
Post a Comment