New Year Thoughts

"A new year begins, as we say. And the latent bud on the branch doesn't stir one whit, the blossom in the bulb sleeps undisturbed in the frozen ground. The woodchuck's hibernating pulse doesn't quicken one beat, and the deer in the thicket is just as hungry as he was yesterday. Man is the only animal to whom this new year is important. All the others live by day and the season.

 The old year dies and we face the new year as though it were an entity, new as a newborn babe. A new calendar with twelve leaves, one for each month. Something in us, some need for the specific, the orderly, the mathematical exactitude, calls for such demarcation. Yet any year, regardless of arbitrary time, is like a circle; you can start at any point upon it and, following the circle, you come back to that point. Our year, our circle, happens to be a cycle of the seasons, planting, growing, reaping, resting; and thus it is a part of the earth, the soil and the flowing waters as well as of the stars by which it is gauged.... And year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us."

 (Hal Borland)

Visitors Coming and Going

They all left yesterday.  

I said my good-byes and waved to family and friends as they left after a weekend of talking, eating, drinking, trips out and catching up.  Content and happy, I went to bed with a mind full of images from a busy, fun-packed weekend and awoke this morning in the afterglow of the happy events. I went downstairs and opened the blinds and my heart sank.  While I has been so engrossed in my own affairs I hadn’t noticed the other visitors departing.

The house-martins arrived in May and noisily set up home again in the eaves of the village houses, quickly becoming constant companions whose chatter and movements were the backdrop to my daily life.  In that time, these small birds brought much joy and comfort to me and the other humans they chose to live amongst for the summer months.  I sat watching them flying through the air, diving, darting, gliding, riding the air currents and following and interacting with each other in ways that could only be interpreted as playing.  My eyes followed them, as did my heart, when they soared up into the sky and my spirits were raised by the sense of freedom and joy they appeared to be experiencing.  

I enjoyed their company from the first day and I soon grew to love these little birds as they and I came to know each other.  When they noticed me in the garden, they changed the course of their flight and swooped low over my head, chattering and singing even more loudly as they went.  I often tried to sit and read but my eyes quickly wandered from the page up to the blue, cloudless sky and the aerial performance of these beautiful black and white birds.  Even when indoors, my thoughts wandered to the house-martins and I would stop whatever I was doing to look out and watch them.  It seemed impolite to ignore them and a waste of a priceless opportunity to witness their captivating antics. I noticed my neighbours felt the same way for I often saw them stopping in the road or interrupting their gardening jobs to stand and watch and admire our  feathered visitors.

And that is why they have been so important and precious to me.  I was constantly aware that they were merely visitors, their presence brief and transient, a precious gift to be savoured for a short time.  Over the past ten days, I watched them all the more closely knowing their departure was imminent  and every evening I went into the garden and quietly bid farewell to them in case they were gone in the morning.  But each new day, their chatter and calls reached my ears and reassured me of further happy hours in their company.

But this morning, I knew as soon as I was awake that they had gone for it was so quiet, with only the occasional chirping of a sparrow or two breaking the silence.  

All day, the sky has been grey and a heavy blanket of cloud hangs over the village.  Man, animal and bird are quiet, subdued.  It is as though all of nature, human and non-human, is mourning the departure of the house-martins and already missing the vivacious beings that filled the air with song and joy while they were with us.  I feel particularly sad for I missed their last days here, so wrapped up in my own world that I forgot about my non-human friends who had brought me so much happiness during their stay.  

I stood in the garden for a long while and saw the blue skies of summer again and the flash of their while bellies as they flew above me, the same abdomens that appeared blood-red when they flew through the light of the setting sun.  Silently, from the depths of my soul, I sent them a message of thanks and wished them a safe journey.  And I started counting the days until their return.

 

The wonder of it all is how these small birds can have such a huge impact on a human life.