Tag: Birds

The Space In Between

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We are human, not robots. So, we all do it to some degree or another. We reflect on seminal moments that have passed rather than living in the present.

In my case, that means occasionally remembering the full moon, which dominated the January horizon the morning my mother died in 2013.

Or–further back in my psyche–the sweet scent of magnolia blossoms, emerging in late March on the front lawn of my suburban St. Louis childhood home. Often, mother nature tricked them with an early April frost that turned the pink petals brown.

Oddly, when we aren’t contemplating the past, many of us focus on the future. We anticipate significant events–personal and social–that approach.

We ponder pressing issues ahead, such as paying the rent or mortgage when it comes due at the end of the month, speculating on the latest batch of troublesome news on the world stage, or waiting impatiently for medical test results.

Though I am a memoir writer–and soon-to-be-published poet (stay tuned)–once-unforeseen yoga sessions (which I now practice frequently on the aqua mat of my sixties) teach me that I am better off focusing on the space in between the memories and the what ifs.

It is the breathing in and out that keeps me whole as I write this sentence on the keys of my laptop. It is the random chirping punctuating my afternoon in the palm tree outside my back door.

It is the rushing water of life, which currently swooshes through the normally dry Salt River gulch in Tempe, thanks to frequent rains in the Valley of the Sun and melting snow from Arizona’s high country.

At this moment in time, I need to remind myself that it is all of these things–happening now–that make life rewarding and meaningful on an otherwise gauzy Wednesday in March.

Chirpy Flock

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For the past two mornings, a chirpy flock of rosy-faced (also called peach-faced) lovebirds has descended upon our feeder. They sway and frolic under the eaves, near our gnarly fig. It’s lost it leaves.

Like last-minute holiday shoppers, the lovebirds push and shove. Jockeying for position–with thrashers, finches, and woodpeckers–to pluck precious seeds on a forty-two-degree morning outside our north-facing window.

These vivid, high-pitched creatures aren’t native to Arizona. Some are daring escapees from past caged lives; others released into the wild by careless owners. Who knows why.

Either way, the carefree lovebirds have assimilated. They flourish in the Phoenix area, and on December 11, 2022, they brighten our view as Tom and I sip coffee and split a delectable, just-ripened tangelo, snatched from the trusty tree near our community pool.

Like Flying

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“I have no choice. I hear your voice. Feels like flying.”

If you love Madonna or remember who she is–please say you do–these eleven words from Like a Prayer, her 1989 pop hit, may prompt your musical heart to soar.

On June 4 and 5 at the Tempe Center for the Arts, these lyrics also will comprise my solo in the Homecoming concert with the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus.

I’m a lifelong lover of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team and an ardent Arizona admirer of a majestic bald eagle that likes to pose atop a telephone pole along Hayden Road near Chapparal Park in Scottsdale every May.

Still, I don’t know what it feels like to actually fly without the aid of an aircraft.

No matter. Singing has always felt like flying–or what I imagine it to be–with the wind lifting me up as I spread my wings and raise my voice. Particularly the sensation of standing on a stage and harmonizing with a chorus of like-minded, artistic-and-musical souls.

The last time I sang a solo on stage was 1979. I was a senior at the University of Missouri and performed On and On (the way-too-precious-sounding Stephen Bishop tune) with a vocal jazz ensemble of fresh-scrubbed faces and silky-smooth voices. We called ourselves The Singsations. (I know. It was pretty corny.)

Anyway, if you’re a Baby Boomer, you know the lyrics from Bishop’s 1976 song …“Down in Jamaica, they got lots of pretty women. Steal your money, then they break your heart …”

At that point, pretending to be a straight man, I wasn’t in touch with my true orientation. It would be June 2010–long after the birth of my two sons and a failed first marriage–before I would discover the safe haven and friendship of the Windy City Gay Chorus in Chicago.

But from 2010 to 2017, I never auditioned for a solo with Windy City. I was content to be a voice among voices.

In 2022–in the autumn of my life a month before my sixty-fifth birthday, in a city where it feels like summer lasts forever–I will be singing my next solo. I’ll be surrounded by a community of about forty gay friends.

As you might imagine I’m excited and a little nervous … waiting to take the stage on June 4 and 5 with more than a dozen friends and family in the audience.

I know I will savor every note of the experience. No doubt, it will feel like flying.

In May 2021, I captured this photo of a bald eagle on stage along Hayden Road in Scottsdale, Arizona. Last Sunday, as Tom and I walked together, this magnificent creature reappeared and dazzled us by swooping down to the lake below to secure a fish for breakfast in his or her talons.

Another August Day

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I breathe outside, inside the oven. Slices of spiky beauty abound above and below me, never beneath. Summer’s puppies pad and pant. They dream of full water bowls and cool tile floors.

Finches pluck seeds like Olympic gymnasts mastering Tokyo’s uneven bars. Thrashers ravage ripe figs in a hot breeze. Doves dare to take a Sonoran dip in the remnants of monsoon rains.

What else could it be? Another August day.

Standing Guard

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On May 27, 2021, I captured this majestic image of a bald eagle spreading its wings, perched atop a telephone pole, gazing east, standing guard along Hayden Road near my home in Scottsdale, Arizona.

This is my domain, though at times I barely recognize the land that met the sky on the wings of my ancestors. Now it is divided into parcels and corridors of parched earth and concrete that channel swirling desert winds.

I crave missing monsoon rains. I grieve for the fallen in war and peace. I pause to observe the pain, pestilence, and progress. I wince over apathy and shortsightedness. I am blind to none of it.

Call me a scavenger or opportunist if you will. I am imperfect like you. I am a survivor, a symbol of what is right and wrong. I was nearly gone and forgotten. Now I am standing guard over the mystery and mayhem that is my home.

Come What May

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I can’t reconcile the beauty of the desert rose outside my backdoor with the ugliness of a black man’s murder in Minneapolis. Except I know the rose is a natural creation that thrives on heat and sun, while the killing is the latest manifestation of man-made hate and ignorance.

I can’t justify one-hundred-thousand deaths perpetuated by a virulent virus in less than six months in a complicated country. Except I know the virus is a natural creation with a cycle of its own, while the escalating numbers are evidence of lies and disarray in an ill-equipped nation.

I can’t imagine another month or two or three or more of disorientation and destruction. Except I know the mockingbird will forever sing atop a palm in the peak of the day, while an uncertain world continues to turn come what may.

Flickers and Fedoras

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I wince when wires obstruct the buttes before me. I suppose it’s a part of life I must endure. Just like the car alarm blaring outside my backdoor as I write this sentence. It supersedes the mockingbird I prefer.

Even worse, the woman walking her fluffy dogs in the park. She ruins the encounter by wearing a red cap I can’t stomach. The same slogan is emblazoned on the canines’ collars. I’m too angry to make eye contact with her. I prefer a campaign to Make Red Hats Wearable Again.

Life is filled with such irritations. Yet, as November winds down and we Americans prepare to gather around tables of all shapes and sizes to proclaim our thankfulness with too much turkey, stuffing, football, pie and impeachment controversy, I am grateful for other things.

Certainly, I am fortunate to have the love and companionship of my husband. Both of my sons are finding full and meaningful lives. I live in a country (admittedly, one deeply divided right now) where I can express my opinions freely. In my sixties, I’ve discovered new friends and reliable doctors in a warm community. I have health coverage and a comfortable home. Many people don’t.

I’m also thankful for the little surprises that appear out of the blue. Like the gilded flicker I spotted during my walk along the canal. This large woodpecker, complete with a splash of red rouge on either side of his head, is native to the Sonoran Desert. In the stillness, he perched high above me on a branch for a full minute on Friday and looked down as if to say “You’d better pay attention to me. This is the good stuff of life.” So I did.

Then on Sunday. Another rare sight to behold. Tom and I were writing and reading in a local coffee shop when a handsome man entered wearing a black fedora. (Actually, handsome men aren’t rare in Scottsdale, Arizona. But fedora sightings are.)

According to the website “History of Hats”, this wide-brimmed hat made of felt first appeared in 1882 in the production of a play called “Fedora” by the French author Victorien Sardou. It was designed for actress Sarah Bernhardt. Over time, the hat became popular for women’s rights activists.

After 1924, fedoras were adopted by men as a fashion statement because Prince Edward of Britain started wearing them.  Somehow, soon after, they appeared on gangsters during Prohibition in the United States. In the 1940s and 1950s, you saw fedoras everywhere on the heads of manly men on stage and in noir films (Frank Sinatra and Humphrey Bogart). After that, the fedora fad faded. Informal clothing won the day.

In November 2019, without warning, one snazzy fedora resurfaced on the noggin of a smart citizen in a Scottsdale, Arizona coffee shop. Though I was pleasantly surprised, I was also observant enough to spot it in a sea of ordinary western, baseball and stocking caps.

Flickers and fedoras. I have so much to be thankful for.

Under the Eaves

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You greet me in the morning, flying under the eaves. Serene and steady. Zooming in for nearby nectar. Always aiming to adapt.

I see how you and your cautious cousins coexist. You skitter across pebbled paths. Nest atop spiky saguaros. Hoot through dusty darkness.

You are the best among us. Feathered and unfettered advocates for organic order. If only we could soar like you in this Sonoran life.

My Slargando World

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April ushers in a slower pace in Arizona. Following the departure of their favorite major league baseball teams that train in the Valley of the Sun, most snowbirds have already packed their bags and flown back to their primary homes. Now, as ninety-plus temperatures descend upon us, there’s more room to dine in restaurants. Fewer scooters to dodge on Scottsdale streets.

To borrow the Italian musical term slargando (a word I learned last night as my husband Tom and I played a rousing game of Balderdash with friends Carolyn and John from Alaska and Adele and Len from New York), I feel the onset of a gradually slowing tempo … a widening sense of time and space on the threshold that coincides with see-you-again-in-the-fall-or-winter conversations we’ll have as our friends depart next week.

All four of them are kind and interesting people we didn’t know five years ago. Now they are friends who walk and laugh beside us. Crave the next movie night in our cozy condo. Cringe with us at breaking news. Share our home for wine and pasta dinners. Treat us to trips on boats, a ready supply of salmon spread, and stories of their future plans.

In other words, they are our sixties comrades in our condo community. Friends who are just as comfortable leading the charge up a trail to the Desert Botanical Garden, following us into a different circle for one of my choral concerts, tagging along for Blarney Bingo on St. Patrick’s Day weekend in Phoenix, or picnicking at a table under a Palo Verde tree at a local hangout in Tempe.

Needless to say, Tom and I are grateful for their friendship and the moments we share. Though we will miss seeing our part-time neighbors for the next several months, Tom and I will have each other and our creative aspirations to keep us busy through spring and summer. And, despite the heat, the coos of mourning doves nearby and the enchanting calls from mockingbirds and desert wrens outside our backdoor will keep us company.

Through it all, I’ll be content to walk and exercise in the morning with my husband, swim laps to keep my heart strong, and write my stories in my slargando world.