Finally finally finally. I followed the call ’til I found it: A female Towee. I don’t even know how to pronounce Towee. But I finally know the chocolate-headed beauty behind the call. It’s been driving me nuts for the past month.
I have not spotted a male. It is always only the female. I wonder if she is solo. That would explain her endless call.
June 14, 2012 It has been a few weeks since I needed to write something here for you. But I cannot think of anything to write. That is probably healthy and hopeful. I picture your face. I remember your words. I smile remembering your stories.
I want to send you a link to a song. Sort of a tribute. Like the one you did for me once. It is Natalie Merchant’s Kind and Generous. ‘Cause I want to thank you.
April 16, 2012
I think of you.
And I think of you thinking of me.
By now it is not a alot, I imagine. But there are times when you think of something you would like to tell me.
I am hoping you take my advice and write down your stories. You can pretend you are telling them to me. If you need inspiration, just imagine me remembering everything you have ever told me. Because I do.
Yesterday, my Pungo 120′s first taste of lake water. Wow. Can’t beat it for tracking. Turning it quickly and in close quarters required a new technique. But my poor Ocean Kayak and Old Town canoe have seen their last seasons with me solo on the lake. This thing cruises. I am so sleek-and-red happy!
Bright red. Sleek. Long.
In fact, 12 feet long.
12 feet of beautiful brand new kayak in the middle of the floor of my 19 foot kitchen. I walk around it. I walk over it. Sometimes I just stand and look at it.
I picked it up from the Forward Air terminal in Hartford on Friday night. Once home, I could not bear to put it in the cellar or hang it outside between the trees. I wanted to look at it. Drool over it.
So I put it in my kitchen. And there it is. It reminds me that any day now, any day, I am going to feel that warmth and smell-that-smell that comes once a year. That day when winter and the chill of early spring have left for good. I live for that moment. It is the moment that marks three seasons of my lake adventures.
I am giddy with the thought of it.
March 30, 2012
I was doing so well. I disciplined my mind to rule over my heart. That is something I am damn good at. Those shaky forlorn feelings of being lost without your voice in my life? Overruled.
Then yesterday morning, in the early-spring sun thwarted only by the wind-chill-factor, someone stuck a pin on me at an outdoor community gathering.
It said Bison Pride.
Yes, it did. I looked up blankly.
Why today? Why after a good week do I need to be reminded?
The emotions rushed back. I realized nothing had changed in my heart. I still long for you.
I wrapped my spring coat closer to my body, against the chill, then went back to my office.
Last night I had to leave the house at 8:40 to drive south to the coast. It was pitchblack; cloudless. The stars and planets seemed brighter than ever. Maybe they weren’t. Maybe it was just warm so I lingered outside the car long enough to get dizzy looking up at them. My mouth was open.
On the road heading out, my fabulous subaru highbeams illuminated well into the woods on both sides. What was that? And that? Suddenly I realized there were moths flying madly into my headlights from both sides.
Moths?
Bugs!
Spring!
While I was realizing these were the first bugs I have seen since Fall, I was changing the stereo using the buttons on the steering wheel. I stopped at violins and strings. It only took a few seconds to recognize: Vivaldi’s Spring!
I turned it up and rolled down my window. HA!
I felt wildly disoriented like those moths. Spring chokes me up with joy and with grief. Both. Equal. It is almost too much to bear. But so alive. So wonderfully alive.
