2014: Time for New Resolutions

My daughter is taking a nap, my husband is watching football, and I am finally sitting down to write a blog post. It has been over 7 months since I’ve posted anything, and since this time of year tends to inspire (lofty) goals of positive habits, I’d like to get back into the practice of writing down some  of my musings every week.  

I love making resolutions. In fact, I often make them throughout the year. Here are some examples: 1. I resolve to write a poem a week. 2. I resolve to stop leaving my clothes in the dryer. 3. I resolve to brush my kitties every day. 4. I resolve to quit nagging my husband (as long as he resolves to quit doing whatever it is that inspires me to nag him).  It occurs to me that I enjoy breaking these mundane resolutions as much as I enjoy making them. I can’t think of one haven’t broken. I’ve never been one for strict rules but there is a part of me (the perfectionist part) that wishes I was. We’ll see how long this resolution of a weekly blog post holds up. (And if I fail to do it weekly, I reserve the right to resolve to do it biweekly – as long as that means every 2 weeks and not twice a week).

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about time. This preoccupation with time is something I’ve always had but since I found out I was pregnant toward the end of 2012 (see?), it suddenly became magnified. I think this is because, as I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, pregnancy and infancy are measured in days and months, rather than years. Yesterday, I listened to a fascinating podcast on time produced by Radiolab: http://www.radiolab.org/story/91584-time/. I love thinking about how to a whale we humans are flitting around like hummingbirds (although I imagine a lot less purposefully)and how to hummingbirds we humans are meandering giants (oh, if only I could figure out how to go slower). Then, last night, I read this poem, “Theories of Illusion,” by Maureen Seaton, in which she ends:

                                

                                My favorite illusion it the one about the relativity

                                

                                of time. How the humpback with her big slow heart,

                                her contrapuntal biorhythm, weaves a song in the deep—

                                half-hour concert to her, to us a minute waltz.

(You can read it in its entirety in her new book, Fibonacci Batman, or if you have a Project Muse account.) It’s these types of connections that make me love science and poetry and the time to take them both in on one day! Now, I just have to figure out how to create time to do that every day. Or stretch time. Or slow time down. Or tell time. That reminds me, I need a new planner.

Blog Post #10: Beyond the Backyard

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

10 a.m.

62 degrees Fahrenheit

It’s a gorgeous day today in Swissvale, PA. The sun is shining in a bright blue sky, the clouds are puffy white, the many different birds are singing and swooping to the bird feeders and back into the trees, more and more flowers are blooming, and this is just the beginning of spring. 

                                                                                                                     Over the past months, my backyard has continued to amaze me. When I began this blog in January, I had a very surface relationship with my backyard. I really did not expect to find much nature, let alone much to write about, through the winter months. How narrow my view was of what thrived just outside my backdoor! Now four months later, I look forward to witnessing the various, sometimes subtle, sometimes shocking, changes that happen out here every time I take the time to look. And this has been the key for me to unlock the wonder that is the urban nature of my backyard: taking the time to look. Not just a cursory glance when the flowers are in full bloom or when a fresh blanket of snow has fallen, but to sit quietly and observe. To get up and examine the minutia up close. To write down these observations and then allow them to lead me to thoughts and connections I don’t think I would have otherwise made. Because of this project, I have discovered the joy of the nature journal and the lyric essay. I have also been pleasantly surprised by how many people have mentioned to me that they’ve been reading my blog.

Flowering pachysandra

Narcissus x odorus: an heirloom daffodil

The surface relationship I had with my backyard at the beginning of this project was similar to my familiarity with nature writing as a genre at the beginning of this course. Although there are many natural images that appear in my poems, I did not consider myself a nature poet (although that is changing and I’m more confident in adopting such a title). I did not have an understanding of the many ways one could approach writing about nature. But there are as many ways to write about nature and as many different stories to tell as there are versions homes and places to explore. There is much debate about what and where nature is. To my way of thinking, this debate is lively and good for the genre, good for writers, good for readers, and good for nature. There is room in the genre for the gentle observations of a nature journal, the loud demands of a rant, the complexities of a braided lyric essay, the magnifying gaze of a poem, and all of the many other literary approaches tried and yet to be tried. But why? Because nature is all around us (although that is debatable). Nature is a part of us (although that is debatable). We are nature (although that is debatable). Nature matters, no matter who you are, whether you realize it or not. And it is the job of the nature writer to reach out and remind everyone else that this is true.

Rosebush

I fear my view of the world and how I write about it is forever changed. I no longer view a nature writer as someone who is a quiet observer wandering through the woods (although that is an important part) but someone who is connected to things both greater and smaller than themselves. That connection is what I am learning and what I refuse to give up. It started in my backyard. Now, I’m ready to move my camping chair into a better position to behold my front yard. 

Easter hyacinth along the side yard

Magnolia tree in our front yard

Blog Post #9: Backyard Birding

9:30 a.m.

58 degrees Fahrenheit

Feels like 58 degrees Fahrenheit!

Andre’s birthday was on Friday. Among the gifts he received from me, he got The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America, a No/No Forest Green Original Bird Feeder with Roof Extension, and a 10 pound bag of black oil sunflower seeds. I admit these are gifts we can both enjoy. But all the better, right? So, after he opened his gifts (I spoiled him a bit this year, since next year we’re sure to be focused on “Baby” Lee’s first birthday) and the family room was satisfyingly littered with crumpled up out-of-date maps (my signature wrapping paper) and discarded paper and plastic packaging (a worry and rant I’ll save for another post), we headed outside with the feeder and the seed. I chose this particular bird feeder since it’s supposed to be ideal for black oil sunflower seeds (the most universal of birdseed), for all-weather, for songbirds, and will supposedly confound the squirrels. We hiked halfway up our backyard to the topmost hanging post, filled the feeder and hung it up. We admired our handiwork for a few minutes, while soaking up the last of the evening sun that was warming the backyard. Then we headed back inside, figuring it would take a little while (hours? days?) for the birds to discover the new feeder.

 

On Saturday morning, I looked outside to see a squirrel munching on the sunflower seeds we had inadvertently dropped on the steps when filling the feeder. I know that they can be a pest, but it was really fun watching the squirrel use its little hands to pick up each individual seed and munch on it. I also spotted a mourning dove (a.k.a. turtle dove) not far from the squirrel. I would have just called it a pigeon, but that was before I had the Sibley Field Guide to Birds in tow. Another bird even I knew, a robin, was poking around the yard but didn’t seem interested in the feeder.

Today, there are even more birds! In addition to the squirrels, robins, and mourning doves, there is a blue jay flapping in and out of the evergreen tree, squawking and chattering away. It is actually a little intimidating. I don’t think it likes me or the other birds existing. There are little birds of all sorts flitting about on the feeder. I’m not sure what type of birds they all are.

Tallulah can only watch from afar

I can tell that they are different, but they don’t hold still long enough for me to snap a decent picture, let alone flip through the bird book to identify them. I think one is a female cardinal, but that’s because there are definitely male cardinals flying around here. This is the most activity my backyard has seen in months! Even the crocuses seem to blooming brighter. It finally feels like spring, it’s even threatening to rain.

Blog Post #8: Hippocampus and the Fear of Dark Waters

From NOVA Online "Seahorse Basics": http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/seahorse/basics.html

              I have always been fascinated by seahorses. Maybe it’s because I’m a Pisces, a water sign. Maybe it’s because in Roman mythology, Neptune’s chariot is pulled by seahorses. Maybe it’s because their genus name, Hippocampus, comes from the Latin “hippo” meaning horse and “campus” meaning sea monster and I can’t imagine anything much more terrifying than a sea monster. It’s more likely because of the way they look. They have the ability to change color to match their surroundings. They have magnificent headsets. They have plates of armor instead of scales. They have eyes that can rove separately or together. They have a prehensile tail that wraps around a stalk of seaweed or a piece of coral anchoring them in the vast sea.

             There are approximately 54 different species of these fish. I have always loved their species names. As exotic, odd, or common as wildflowers: Winged seahorse, False-eye seahorse,  Giraffe seahorse, Knobby seahorse, Cape seahorse, Tiger Tail seahorse, Crowned seahorse, New Caledonian Thorny seahorse, Big-head seahorse, Long-snouted seahorse, Spiny Seahorse, Lichtenstein's Seahorse, Bullneck seahorse, Japanese seahorse, Monte Bello seahorse, Northern Spiny seahorse, High-crown seahorse, Pygmy Thorny seahorse, Queensland seahorse, Slender seahorse, Half-spined seahorse, Hedgehog seahorse, Tiger Snout seahorse, Flat-faced seahorse, Walea pygmy seahorse, and Zebra seahorse, just to name a few.

I have always admired seahorses and the fact that they are monogamous. If their mate disappears or dies, they are slow to find another partner. I would be slow, too. They are greatly desired in the Traditional Chinese Medicine market as they are thought to be an aphrodisiac and a cure for other ailments. Of course, this requires them to be captured and killed at an estimate of about 20 million a year. Hundreds of thousands of seahorses are captured for the aquarium trade. And since they live in sea grasses, mangroves, coral reefs and estuaries, their homes are being destroyed. So, the chances of them losing a mate are rapidly increasing. This seems especially cruel to a genus known for monogamy.

But what really fascinates me is the fact that the male seahorse is the one who takes care of the young. The female deposits hundreds of eggs into his incubation pocket, which he carries for 20 or so days. And even after they hatch, he incubates their babies until they are developed enough to swim out on their own. Then he gives birth to them one by one. All male seahorses do this. But, I think they are the only males who do. As my due date approaches, the reality of giving birth and not knowing exactly what to expect except general pain lurks like a sea monster in dark waters. A little part of me wishes I could pass this part of becoming a parent onto my partner.

Blog Post #7: Spring Cleaning

Sunday, March 24, 2013

10:32 a.m.

33 degrees Fahrenheit

Feels like 27 degrees Fahrenheit

Today, sitting in my chair in my backyard, I’m having trouble concentrating on nature, or, at least, nature as I have been taught to think of it. This week, we have been reading essays by urban nature writers. One essay in particular, “Thirteen Ways of Seeing Nature in L.A.” by Jenny Price, has me focused on all of the many products I take for granted. (You should read it. You’ll never think about your “un”natural surroundings the same way again.) Of course, her project is not unlike other nature writer’s we’ve read this semester. One piece in particular (prose poem? lyric essay?) by Pattiann Rogers entitled, “This is Nature” from Dream of the Marsh Wren, is a list of many, many things from Bach to “an ice pick through the chest or a soothing hand on the forehead” to support her point that, “[n]othing that exists…is outside nature.” And I believe that. I thought I knew that. But reading Price’s essay about a nature in a thickly urban environment showed me that I still harbor the thought that nature is around us in the city, yes, but only in the green spaces. So, today, I’m looking at the objects we’ve put here, rather than the plants and animals that I’ve been focusing on in past posts. For the most part, these objects are not hard to find because they are, for the most part, much brighter than the rest of the yard. There are the metal for sale signs Andre re-purposed for hanging plant and bird feeder holders, the plastic kitty litter bins we sunk into the ground for compost bins, the brightly colored ceramic tea cups we used for growing sweat oat grass that we just left in a larger ceramic pot over the winter, a few ceramic gnomes, and a St. Francis statue that, despite our best efforts, occasionally loses his head. 

Bird feeder

Compost Container

Gnomes and St. Francis

Pot full of pots

Whose basketball is this?

 

So, even though these objects would not be here if Andre and I had not put them here, they are part of the landscape. They are part of the backyard. They are part of the natural world and have a natural history. I believe this. But…

Despite the slightly warmer, sunny weather yesterday, I spent the morning and most of the afternoon inside my house. With a few windows thrown open to the not-so-frigid March air, Andre and I engaged in the annual activity of spring cleaning. While moving from one room to the next, I tried to consider the natural history of some of the objects I take for granted. Where did the oak or maple (I’m not sure which) come from that now make the floors and banister of my house? Where does the white vinegar and baking soda come from that we use to clean almost all of the surfaces? What about the lye my husband used to make the soap we use every day. Where does the pigment come from for the many colors of paint we’ve painted the walls throughout our house? Where does the paper come from to make the pages of the hundreds of books that line our walls? What about the bookshelves they live on? About some of these objects I could make an educated guess (wood, paper) but the origins of paint pigment? I don’t really have a clue. (As a side note: the blog, Pigments: A Brief History of Color is fascinating.)

Blog Post #6: In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb

27 degrees Fahrenheit

Feels like 17 degrees Fahrenheit

March is said to come in like a lion and go out like a lamb. I’ve always loved that saying. It illustrates the end to the blustery, roaring winter months and promises the glorious entrance of the soft days of spring.

This past weekend it felt like spring outside. In the warmer weather, my backyard suddenly seems so inviting. Despite my ballooning belly and the difficulty it gives me when I try to bend over, I spend much of the day Saturday raking up the leaves we spread as covering compost last fall. The leaves did not completely break down over the winter and clearing them away feels as though I’m clearing away two seasons, fall and winter. There are more of the same green sprouts I discovered last week popping out of the uncovered ground. The tulips and daffodils are still green shafts. The crocuses are in full bloom and there are more and more groups of them. They are perfectly bunched lavender bouquets, hunched close to the ground. Nestled in the green grass, they look like an Easter basket display. On one of the crocus clusters there is a honey bee crawling in and out of each purple blossom. The first bee of the season!  

But the lion returned yesterday, easily devouring the lamb. Today, the low gray sky is spitting snowflakes in every direction making it hard for me to keep my notebook pages flat, let alone dry. The lovely patches of crocuses are hardy, though. They don’t seem to be bothered by the cold and wind, presumably the result of millions of years of evolution. Their time to bloom is now, in a month that can change from 60 degrees Fahrenheit to 25 degrees Fahrenheit in a day. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the lion didn’t devour the lamb. Maybe the lion is roaring its frosty last breath in the lamb’s gentle, purple-flowered face.  And the lamb grows that much stronger for it.

I heard this poem about the end of winter on the Writer’s Almanac a few days ago:

In the Late Season

At the soft place in the snowbank
Warmed to dripping by the sun
There is the smell of water.
On the western wind the hint of glacier.
A cottonwood tree warmed by the same sun
On the same day,
My back against its rough bark
Same west wind mild in my face.
A piece of spring
Pierced me with love for this empty place
Where a prairie creek runs
Under its cover of clear ice
And the sound it makes,
Mysterious as a heartbeat,
New as a lamb.

"In the Late Season" by Tom Hennen, from DarknessSticks to Everything. © Copper Canyon Press, 2013.

Blog Post #5: Spring Marches In

4:30 p.m.

26 degrees Fahrenheit

(feels like 17 degrees Fahrenheit)

March is the first month of the Roman year. It is also my birthday month. It seems fitting that it is named after the Roman god of war, Mars – given the bitter cold of this wind blowing through my backyard it’s a battle to stay out here. But March also holds the first day of spring. This year, according to 2013 Old Farmer’s Almanac, the vernal equinox occurs on March 20 at 7:02 A.M. EDT. On the first day of spring, day and night are each approximately 12 hours long. Balance is reset as we move into the light-hearted days of spring.

There have been a few warmer mornings this past week where I heard birds enthusiastically singing, but none are singing at the moment. I don’t know where they go, but I don’t see any nests in the trees or the ground of my backyard. I have been told not to feed ducks and geese because it may interrupt their sense of urgency when it comes to migrating south for the winter. Because of this, I have always felt unsure about keeping a bird feeder stocked in the late fall through the winter. I didn’t want to inadvertently cause the demise of some migratory bird because I wanted to see more birds in my backyard. But, according to a webpage entitled, “Feeding Your Backyard Birds,” found on the Humane Society of the United States website, I really have nothing to fear. In fact, it can actually be helpful: “Bird feeding is most helpful at times of when birds need the most energy, such as during temperature extremes, migration, and in late winter or early spring, when natural seed sources are depleted.”

I do see something that makes my heart leap. Green sprouts pushing through last year’s layer of dried leaves and compost. Green sprouts that will eventually turn into green stalks and bright flowers! These plants seem like a miracle to me. I recognize them because my husband planted the bulbs the first fall we lived in this house and points them out to me each year as soon as they start to emerge: crocuses, tulips, and daffodils. The tulip shoots are the first that I notice. They look like red rolled tongues (you know, that trick only the genetically-enabled can do) sticking out in tight bunches. Their insides are green and full of promise.  

Not far away are the mop-headed crocuses. They seem comically disheveled compared to the militant unfurling of the tulips. I even found one purple flower. It is gorgeous and so welcome. 

A few feet away, I discover the daffodil shoots. They seem so substantial, ready to burst into their cup and saucer blooms. I remember ours being of the white and yellow varieties, but I wouldn’t swear to it. 

What I do know is that their time is coming, even if I forget because I am so removed from the day to day passing of the seasons, only noting hard to miss events like the vernal equinox, a full moon, or a flower once it is blooming. This year, I get to point out the shoots to my husband. I may not point out to him the hole I found where I’m pretty sure a squirrel absconded with a bulb. 

I choose to see this as part of the balance, a way for humans and non-humans to share this backyard. And like a responsible patron of the earth, the squirrel left some bulbs to become green shoots.