Saving the birds

Winter is no time to be housebound.  Recently, I went to Kentucky to visit and offer some help to my mother, who was home recuperating from knee replacement surgery.  Since our phone topics were narrowing to increasingly mundane obsessions, it occurred to me that maybe I wanted to get home for a few days, to assess her well being, and to see whether she was yet channeling her inner Jack Torrance.  Shortly after I landed, mother nature, like Jackson Pollock, scattered ice across the state, bringing bluegrass life to a screeching halt.  And oh, mother nature, how she laughed her deep, sinister laugh, as my own mother invented tasks that had barely waited for my arrival, such as the much needed written inventory of years old food in the basement freezer.  As I scraped my fingernails down the inside of the living room window panes, I noticed that things outside weren't as still and quiet as I had thought them to be.  Everywhere, there were birds.  Robins and sparrows and the occasional cardinal covered the trees and blanketed the frozen lawn.  They flew in what might be described as frantic patterns, back and forth across my line of vision, swirling and diving and climbiing, in relentless repetition.  It was enough of a spectacle to make me forget the cross I thought I bore.  How, I wondered, do birds find food in this weather?  Where do they sleep?  What shelters them from so much falling sleet and ice?  As I stood and gazed, and pondered the challenge of survival for these fragile creatures, feeling my own relative burdens lighten, my mother quietly joined me at the window.  As though echoing my thoughts, she murmered, "I hope they make it."  In that moment, I knew that the next few days would be fine.  I would help in whatever way she needed.  There was no call for using her to-do list as a measure of her sanity.  I would return north, knowing that the little acts, whatever they were, would warm her winter, even if just a bit.  After a  pause, she added, "because I really don't want to be picking up dead robins tomorrow."

Nor any drop to drink.

Recently, in the greater Boston area, we had what some would call a water "crisis".  Other more reasonable people, or anyone born in a country with a name that is not the United States of America, might refer differently to the events.  They might, just by way of example, mention "that inconvenience" we experienced around Boston, with a dismissive waive of their hand. 

Somewhere, around one of the W towns (A is for apple, B is for Bunny, and if you live around Boston, W is for Wicked Rich), a water main broke.  Although I pored over those Richard Scarry books as a kid, with all those busy people who were actually busy bunnies, and pigs, in busy town, showing you the town's inner workings, I really can't tell you much about plumbing, or pipes.  I know they bring us clean water, and they take dirty water away.  I have vague notions about "from where" and "to where".  Reservoirs, I suppose, and sewage treatment plants, respectively.  (As a complete aside, why "sewage treatment plants"?  Why not sewage disposal plants, or sewage management facilities?  What are we treating the sewage for?   Depression?  "Doc, I'm feeling like crap..." ).  Bottom (no pun intended) line, something broke somewhere, and lo, the clean water would not come.  Some 20 Boston area towns had running water that we could not drink, unless we boiled it first, to kill off any bacteria that might swimming through the dirty water they were sending into our homes.  Kill or be killed.  It was Lord of the Flies time in New England. 

The first sign that we had lost our collective minds came through online email forums and social networking sites.  Everyone had questions.  How long to boil the water?  Could we run our dishwashers?  Our washing machines?  How could it be true that it was OK to shower, but handwashing must be chased with hand sanitizer?  What if we opened our eyes in the shower?  Or water got in our ears?  Could we water our lawns?  I don't suggest that the questions were silly.  Of course they weren't.  They were perfectly natural, and some were even welcomed by the rest of us who hadn't thought to ask them. 

You know that feeling, though, that you get on the first gorgeous day of spring, after a long, cold winter?  You head out for a walk, to soak in the sweet sunshine and to inhale the warm air.  Then, someone says, "wow!  listen to the birds!" ... and suddenly, listening to the birds is all it seems that you can do.  You hear their songs, and their trills, and you rejoice with them, that spring is here!  But you begin to notice that there are so very many of them.  And all of them are singing, at once, trying to drown one another out with their own happy songs.  Must they sing so loudly?  Where in the hell did so many birds suddenly come from?  And then you start running down the street, hands over ears, screaming "would someone SHUT THEM UP already?!"  Or maybe that's just me.

Anyway, that's how I felt as I continued to read the local news stories and the yahoo group and facebook posts.  Oh!  I thought to myself.  Thank goodness I am paying attention.  These questions make sense!  And I need to listen to them!  Steadily, however, the volume climbed.  More thirsty town folk added their chirps to the rising cacophony.  As neighbors competed to lay claim to the catastrophe, and to make their own suffering heard, they grew louder, and more insistent.  The tenor of the questions changed, and the charges began to fly.  Why weren't we notified sooner?  Why weren't we notified BETTER?  How long would this last?  Were they telling us the truth?  Why weren't we better prepared? 

The madness reached a crescendo. There were people in the water aisles of every grocery store, liquor store, and gas station convenience mart, emptying the shelves of all sizes of Aquafina and Poland Springs.  A woman climbed onto her shopping cart to reach the top shelves, and began tossing water over the heads of the thirsty crowd, to her own family members, who waited on the perimeter to receive the goods, like hyenas circling the lions.   I watched the news stories, and tried to bury my head beneath my blankets to avoid the screaming birds of prey, as Tim quietly and humanely boiled a pot of tap water on our Kitchen Aid gas stove. 

The schools let us know, by reverse 9-1-1 calls to our homes, that our children could bring 16 oz water bottles to school.  Thus began more flapping and squawking.  Who was the school to tell us how much water our child could or could not bring to school?  The listserves and the facebook pages went berserk.   "If I want my child to drink purified water, I'll send as much water as I damned well please, Mr. Superintendent.  I didn't trample Mrs. O'Malley in Aisle 9 just to be told I couldn't anoint my offspring with the spoils!  Oh, and you will have hand sanitizer available for the kids to use after washing their hands, won't you?"  I contemplated the frustration, and the bravado, as I tried to chip the plaster of dried toothpaste from my toothbrush.  As it turns out , pouring a stream of boiled water over your toothbrush doesn't get it quite as clean as, say, running it under the tap.  On the other hand, you don't end up with e coli in your mouth, so seen in that light, brushing or sanding your teeth with a miniature brick is really a very small price to pay. 

A few days later, the "all clear" sounded.  Pipes were flushed, ice trays emptied and refilled, and all was once again well in the slowly thawing upper east coast.  The birds settled into their nests, lovingly attended to their chicks, and whispered to one another, "well, that really wasn't so bad".  The next few days were spent applauding ourselves, and each other, for the strength and calm that allowed us to weather the storm.  We crowed about how we checked in on elderly neighbors, and clucked about how quickly and efficiently the problem was resolved.  As we ripped apart the packaging on our new toothbrushes, the news anchors turned their attention to the oil leak that is currently poisoning the already suffering gulf coast.  Now there's a water problem. 

Just Keep On Pushing On

Hi five readers!  Remember me?
I haven't given up on giving!  Or blogging!  But I have been traveling, and working.  A lot of both of those things.  And, so, my owl watching and blogging and parenting and other such hobbies have taken a bit of back seat.  Having experienced two kids' talent shows recently, I'll just say, "It ain't about how fast I get there, it ain't about what's waitin' on the other siii - iiii --iiide.  It's the cliiii - iiiii --iiiiimb". 
And, while you wait, if you'd like to know where you, too, can pass time singing karaoke Miley Cyrus, it's HERE.  No need to thank me. 

A marathon, not a sprint.

We all have "off days".  Yesterday was one of those, and I'll confess to thinking that maybe the world was already asking enough of me.  I was tired and feeling bounced around a lot by the numerous and competing forces in my life.  Finding another way to give yesterday felt like it was just going to take too much.  The best and most that I could muster was a smile for a stranger who looked down on his luck, and like he could use a smile, at the very least. 

We often hear the phrase "give what you can", and yesterday I felt like I did give what I could.  It still felt good to allow my mind to float toward giving on a day that was very "off", and it probably helped to keep me from sinking too far beneath the surface. 

Today is better.  I decided to get the giving off to an early start, and look for little ways throughout the day to build momentum again.  I'll write about those efforts in another post.  Today, this morning, I am writing merely to acknowledge that it doesn't need to be perfect, or even big.  It only needs to be genuine.

All the single Mommies.

Can I get a shout out for the single parents?   

There are a few single moms in my inner circle.  Not all of them knew that they'd be a member of that club.  A couple of them found themselves hurtled unexpectedly through the clubhouse doors, while others joined by choice, with their eyes wide open.  Regardless of how they got there, they all seem to be remarkably quick studies on the secret handshake. 

They are all super heros in my book, but even super heros lose the ability to fly sometimes.  The kryptonite for one particular single mom friend this week has been a herniated disk.  I'll bet one starts to see life dramatically differently from the vantage point of the floor.  Today I was a minor player in a symphony of women friends who rallied around this super single Mom and her ultra cool kid.  There's a lot of power and comfort in seeing how women will rush to and lift up a friend in need.  A stumbling block placed in front of one of us seems to generate enough energy to get us all up and over or around the hurdle together, while the momentum of support carries us fast and far.   

Now put your hands up.

Cleaning House

Hello internet!  I know.  You thought I was dead, given how yesterday I blogged about being dead, and all.  Surprise!  Even I thought I had died.  It turns out, though, that I'm not so dead. And now, I am wrestling with whether it is in poor taste to draw some analogy to yesterday having been Easter.  Never mind.  I already know that it is in poor taste.  What I'm really wondering just how tasteless it is.  I'm sure someone will let me know, one way or another.     

Moving right along, I think I'm starting to over-analyze this whole "gift" thing, and how one should define "gift". 

There are times that I want to do something for somebody, but start wondering whether I am cheating, somehow.  If you spend a little time doing someone a favor, is that a "gift"?  And, do the gifts need to be things you wouldn't have "given" but for the 29 Gifts project?  What if you give someone a birthday gift?  Does that count?  What if you give that someone a birthday gift every year?  Why should you get "29 Gifts" sort of credit for this year's birthday gift, that you would have given anyway?  What if you just keep choosing people in your family or immediate circle of friends as recipients?   Are the gifts supposed to be more like "random acts of kindness"?  If you get all pissed off at someone for something, and you can't let go of feeling pissed off about it, does that somehow negate the good that you are trying to create with the gift thing?  Does it make a difference if you decide not to make an issue of it?  What if you do make an issue of it?  Aren't you so glad you don't have to live with me?

I have been assessing, and reassessing, my goals, and asking myself what I hope to take from this exercise.  In my most self-critical moments, I wonder if I am looking for too much positive reinforcement, and making this too much about me (and how fabulous I am for being so thoughful and giving, what with the daily giving of gifts and telling the world about it... or at least the 5 people reading my blog).  And, when I read the 29 Gifts book, the author talks quite a bit about what she receives... the abundance that comes back to her, because she is giving.  I ask myself whether this turns "giving" into a more selfish act.  And, does it matter, if you are generating good feelings for others and injecting positive energy into the karmic universe at the same time?  Aren't you allowed to get something from the experience?  The purpose of giving in my mind is, at least in part, to learn to be conscious about your own state of gratitude, to be in that state more often, and to be outwardly focused (if you are using your energy to focus on others, there is less room left for dwelling on yourself).  But, when you do those things, isn't it also the goal to become a more spiritually fulfilled (and, by extension, happier) person?  Or is it really supposed to be completely altruistic?  Darn it.  I'm confusing myself. 

Today, I am working very hard on letting go of the perfection that I am trying to weave into the fabric of my giving project.  I am permitting myself to skim the instructions.  I want to focus less and worry less about whether I am doing it right, and spend more time thinking about giving genuinely, and generously.  Without any expectation of payback, karmic or otherwise. 

Today, I chose to give a gift that the recipients may never know that they received.  We have neighbors... The Invisibles (who are also friends ... and who we would have chosen as friends even if we had met them somewhere other than in the neighborhood).  The Invisibles took an opportunity to spend a few years abroad.  They do come home from time to time, but their house here in town remains vacant much of the year (and the alarm is on, and neighbors are watching, potential burgler).  I pass their home at least twice a day, and over the past few weeks I have been noticing the accumulation of bits of trash that has blown around and landed in their bushes.  Today, Rachel and I took a garbage bag to our neighbor's home, and we picked all the bits of candy bar wrappers, random papers, plastic bags, cigarette butts and other detritus of a semi-urban community.  We also took the time to pull some of the weeds from their garden.  

 In caring for their home just a bit, without regard to whether they will ever know, we practiced giving just for the sake of giving, and not for the credit that we accumulate or the "thanks" that we might receive.  I'm pretty sure that The Invisibles aren't reading this blog (I don't see them here, anyway).

Gift 9. The End.

Today, a woman and her husband were riding their bikes on a busy Cambridge street.  She took a very hard fall, right by my car.  I heard the crash.  I heard her scream, and cry.  She was bruised, and bloody.  I put her bike in my trunk and drove her home.  (her husband rode his bike to their house, and met us there). 

Then I rode my own bike 24 miles, to fulfill a winter time promise made to Rachel.

Then I came home and died.  Slowly.  The end.