Virginia Arthur's Blog, page 5
February 15, 2016
Got Frogs?
California is confused about its nature, literally.
For a state that over the past decade has repulsed anything with the letters G, O, P in it, it now manages its own nature through a political program set up by George Bush Jr. Perhaps you've heard of it and yes, like anything else associated with George Bush Jr's administration, the name of it is Orwellian. It's called the "Healthy Forests Restoration Act" implying of course that before the "act" we didn't have any, healthy forests that is. Other names for it could be, "The Human Arrogance Perpetuation Act" or "The Nature Destruction Act", "Blame the Biodiversity Act", "We Won't Take No Stinkin' Responsibility for Nothin' Act",
"Get 'Cher Hands on Easy Money Act".
Once in California, there existed an ethic about tearing stuff up. Oh yea, we tear stuff up, but there was a tacit understanding among the citizenry that we tear stuff up judiciously. Instead of letting OHV's tear up the desert, we ask them to tear up the desert only in certain areas. Logging in CA used to be called, yup, logging and it took place only in certain areas; never in state parks. Pesticides were taboo. In other words, the destruction was kept track of more or less, managed. Nature preserves were nature preserves. Wilderness areas were wilderness areas. State Parks didn't have "foresters" on staff. Of course, what administration trashed this paradigm? Bush Jr's.
The Healthy Forest Restoration Act sounds nifty but it doles out money, to the tune of millions, for thinning and brushing projects, ANYWHERE, under the guise of "fire safety" and no piece of land ANYWHERE in California is immune now to being logged, brushed, chained, bombed with pesticides because, of course, it's for "fire safety". It's all for YOUR SAFETY.
Of course, this is complete b.s. Ask me because not only did I clear (along with my neighbors) and we all still lost our HOMES MADE FROM WOOD in the 2003 wildfire in San Diego, I hear from hundreds of people who did the same. "We cleared but our house still burned down." Of course you did and of course IT did. The "Healthy Forests Restoration Act" doesn't include any incentives/funding for shoring up a HOUSE against a fire, like putting on a fire safe roof, purchase of barricade gels, installation of water tanks for a neighborhood...it only cuts sht down, chains stuff out, sprays pesticides all over...this is all it does. Our houses, made of wood, sitting on steep slopes because they were PERMITTED by the counties (the steep slope ordinances mysteriously discontinued)--naaa, don't talk about all the hypocrisy--just cut all your trees down.
It's been danm hard to get used to--the sound of chain saws just about anywhere, the dropping of old oak trees, the decimation of a once thick wildlife- supporting chaparral layers, and everybody's in on the game. CA State Parks now logs in the state parks, of course for "fire safety". The truly ecologically pristine places in CA were once held by our state park system but they're gone. CA Fish and Wildlife now goes in and, yes, destroys excellent fish and wildlife habitat, of course, for our safety. Even the so-called "Sierra Conservancy" is in on the game, getting millions...then up creeps the Biomass Boys who want to build plants all over to burn this evil stuff that was once the home of quail, salamanders, foxes, bobcats, deer, and hundreds of species of birds...the list is far longer than this.
Why? You know why. Because the "Healthy Forest Restoration Act" doles out "grants"--MONEY like candy and if you're a cash strapped public agency, hell, you'll chain out some juniper, spray pesticides all over God knows what (they don't know) if it means a FTE or a few thousand. Policy, ethics? Na.
Today I heard native frogs, thousands of them, in the valley below my house about the same time I watched a flock of hundreds of sandhill cranes fly overhead. "FROGS?" I said to myself. "FROGS?" Frogs mean clean water. Frogs mean no pesticides. Frogs mean a healthy ecosystem. My neighbors aren't spraying the wetlands I guess this year, not yet, because when they do, the sound of the frogs will end, immediately. The pesticides kill the tadpoles/frogs on contact and who determined this through indisputable research?
We have a new Rachel Carson and his name is Dr. Rick Relyea. See his research at his website:
http://science.rpi.edu/faculty/rick-r...
Like Rachel, he is being attacked by the chemical companies that manufacture these poisons. He deserves our support.
Frogs calling by the thousands didn't used to be a big deal in California but now that everyone can do anything to the land in the name of making us all "safe", the sound of frogs calling from a wetland is a thing to stop you in your tracks, unique, precious, and rare. I almost wish they weren't calling because now all I will do is listen for the day they all die.
For a state that over the past decade has repulsed anything with the letters G, O, P in it, it now manages its own nature through a political program set up by George Bush Jr. Perhaps you've heard of it and yes, like anything else associated with George Bush Jr's administration, the name of it is Orwellian. It's called the "Healthy Forests Restoration Act" implying of course that before the "act" we didn't have any, healthy forests that is. Other names for it could be, "The Human Arrogance Perpetuation Act" or "The Nature Destruction Act", "Blame the Biodiversity Act", "We Won't Take No Stinkin' Responsibility for Nothin' Act",
"Get 'Cher Hands on Easy Money Act".
Once in California, there existed an ethic about tearing stuff up. Oh yea, we tear stuff up, but there was a tacit understanding among the citizenry that we tear stuff up judiciously. Instead of letting OHV's tear up the desert, we ask them to tear up the desert only in certain areas. Logging in CA used to be called, yup, logging and it took place only in certain areas; never in state parks. Pesticides were taboo. In other words, the destruction was kept track of more or less, managed. Nature preserves were nature preserves. Wilderness areas were wilderness areas. State Parks didn't have "foresters" on staff. Of course, what administration trashed this paradigm? Bush Jr's.
The Healthy Forest Restoration Act sounds nifty but it doles out money, to the tune of millions, for thinning and brushing projects, ANYWHERE, under the guise of "fire safety" and no piece of land ANYWHERE in California is immune now to being logged, brushed, chained, bombed with pesticides because, of course, it's for "fire safety". It's all for YOUR SAFETY.
Of course, this is complete b.s. Ask me because not only did I clear (along with my neighbors) and we all still lost our HOMES MADE FROM WOOD in the 2003 wildfire in San Diego, I hear from hundreds of people who did the same. "We cleared but our house still burned down." Of course you did and of course IT did. The "Healthy Forests Restoration Act" doesn't include any incentives/funding for shoring up a HOUSE against a fire, like putting on a fire safe roof, purchase of barricade gels, installation of water tanks for a neighborhood...it only cuts sht down, chains stuff out, sprays pesticides all over...this is all it does. Our houses, made of wood, sitting on steep slopes because they were PERMITTED by the counties (the steep slope ordinances mysteriously discontinued)--naaa, don't talk about all the hypocrisy--just cut all your trees down.
It's been danm hard to get used to--the sound of chain saws just about anywhere, the dropping of old oak trees, the decimation of a once thick wildlife- supporting chaparral layers, and everybody's in on the game. CA State Parks now logs in the state parks, of course for "fire safety". The truly ecologically pristine places in CA were once held by our state park system but they're gone. CA Fish and Wildlife now goes in and, yes, destroys excellent fish and wildlife habitat, of course, for our safety. Even the so-called "Sierra Conservancy" is in on the game, getting millions...then up creeps the Biomass Boys who want to build plants all over to burn this evil stuff that was once the home of quail, salamanders, foxes, bobcats, deer, and hundreds of species of birds...the list is far longer than this.
Why? You know why. Because the "Healthy Forest Restoration Act" doles out "grants"--MONEY like candy and if you're a cash strapped public agency, hell, you'll chain out some juniper, spray pesticides all over God knows what (they don't know) if it means a FTE or a few thousand. Policy, ethics? Na.
Today I heard native frogs, thousands of them, in the valley below my house about the same time I watched a flock of hundreds of sandhill cranes fly overhead. "FROGS?" I said to myself. "FROGS?" Frogs mean clean water. Frogs mean no pesticides. Frogs mean a healthy ecosystem. My neighbors aren't spraying the wetlands I guess this year, not yet, because when they do, the sound of the frogs will end, immediately. The pesticides kill the tadpoles/frogs on contact and who determined this through indisputable research?
We have a new Rachel Carson and his name is Dr. Rick Relyea. See his research at his website:
http://science.rpi.edu/faculty/rick-r...
Like Rachel, he is being attacked by the chemical companies that manufacture these poisons. He deserves our support.
Frogs calling by the thousands didn't used to be a big deal in California but now that everyone can do anything to the land in the name of making us all "safe", the sound of frogs calling from a wetland is a thing to stop you in your tracks, unique, precious, and rare. I almost wish they weren't calling because now all I will do is listen for the day they all die.
January 12, 2016
Ground Control to Major Tom
A brilliant star the likes of which we will never see again has gone out.
http://www.vox.com/2016/1/11/10750056...
David, here's to your atoms becoming cosmic dust.
The stuff of stars. We will all be joining you someday.
In sadness,
VA
http://www.vox.com/2016/1/11/10750056...
David, here's to your atoms becoming cosmic dust.
The stuff of stars. We will all be joining you someday.
In sadness,
VA
December 20, 2015
November 22, 2015
September 6, 2015
It's Gone. Congress Sunsets the 50 Year Old Land and Water Conservation Fund
The program that asked corporations to pay their fair share for use/profit off OUR public lands is dead.
Read more at the link: http://www.lwcfcoalition.org/
http://virginiaarthurauthor.com/?p=473
Read more at the link: http://www.lwcfcoalition.org/
http://virginiaarthurauthor.com/?p=473
July 31, 2015
July 27, 2015
October 15, 2014
Thoughts About The End of Snow In California.
At 5 a.m. this morning, after yet another achingly dry Northern California summer, and dry summers are normal for us per our type of Mediterranean climate but now the rain and snow come later, the snow higher, I open the windows in my bedroom to listen to the rain. A cold blast of air should fill the room, but this is a warm rain.
September, the warmest year on record, again. How can we possibly ignore that every year is warmer than the one before it? Why isn't this freaking us out?
I grew up in snow country like so many of us. The snow was often cursed by my working class parents who got up at 5 a.m. to shovel it off our steep rounded driveway so we could get to school and they could get to work. Before snow blowers. Of course, the most glorious thing was when school was cancelled even if my parents were still expected to somehow get to work. No, the most glorious thing was when both my parents were home after a snowstorm. This was usually only on the weekends. The best snow days were Saturdays.
I wake up and listen. I can hear the scraping of the shovels against the driveway. I can hear them talking, the front door opening and closing. One of my siblings is out there, my older brother, taking instructions. I get up and put on my 7 layers of clothing--my blue snow pants with the suspenders. My white rubber boots. I walk outside where my mother offers me a giant smile and tosses a shovel full of snow at me, then she laughs.
"It's about time sleepyhead," she says. I hope on top of hope she does not have to go to work later. I don't get to spend a lot of time with her. The dog is bounding through the snow. Other neighbors are also outside, striving to get that scrape against the cement.
I love the winter light.
After a couple hours that includes sledding, goofing around, my mother once again reprimands my brother for hitting me too hard with a snowball. Then the driveway is declared clear. Everyone but me goes inside. My mother is going to craft one of her incredible recipes--this time my favorite potato soup. Somehow, she also manages two loafs of homemade bread. Bread machines did not exist then.
I climb to the top of the highest snow pile and sit on it, fiddling with the snow, thinking how happy I am, in this moment.
I love the winter light.
Packing the backpack to head out for a day of cross country skiing then sitting on a pile of snow at sunset, in the winter light, a satisfied tired, a fine beer in my hands to commemorate my blessings--good health, a day of peace and beauty.
Just finishing negotiating a damn hard mountain or surviving a drop into a bowl then sitting by the fire afterwards in a ski lodge.
Looking outside on a wintery day and knowing I have no place to go.
Won't we miss the snow? As we face the end of it and the beginning of something else; we should all be terrified about this, if not for us, for future generations. Then again, maybe we really don't care about them.
I mourn the end of snow and the beginning of this something else.
I mourn the end of snow in California.
https://www.goodreads.com/photo/autho...
September, the warmest year on record, again. How can we possibly ignore that every year is warmer than the one before it? Why isn't this freaking us out?
I grew up in snow country like so many of us. The snow was often cursed by my working class parents who got up at 5 a.m. to shovel it off our steep rounded driveway so we could get to school and they could get to work. Before snow blowers. Of course, the most glorious thing was when school was cancelled even if my parents were still expected to somehow get to work. No, the most glorious thing was when both my parents were home after a snowstorm. This was usually only on the weekends. The best snow days were Saturdays.
I wake up and listen. I can hear the scraping of the shovels against the driveway. I can hear them talking, the front door opening and closing. One of my siblings is out there, my older brother, taking instructions. I get up and put on my 7 layers of clothing--my blue snow pants with the suspenders. My white rubber boots. I walk outside where my mother offers me a giant smile and tosses a shovel full of snow at me, then she laughs.
"It's about time sleepyhead," she says. I hope on top of hope she does not have to go to work later. I don't get to spend a lot of time with her. The dog is bounding through the snow. Other neighbors are also outside, striving to get that scrape against the cement.
I love the winter light.
After a couple hours that includes sledding, goofing around, my mother once again reprimands my brother for hitting me too hard with a snowball. Then the driveway is declared clear. Everyone but me goes inside. My mother is going to craft one of her incredible recipes--this time my favorite potato soup. Somehow, she also manages two loafs of homemade bread. Bread machines did not exist then.
I climb to the top of the highest snow pile and sit on it, fiddling with the snow, thinking how happy I am, in this moment.
I love the winter light.
Packing the backpack to head out for a day of cross country skiing then sitting on a pile of snow at sunset, in the winter light, a satisfied tired, a fine beer in my hands to commemorate my blessings--good health, a day of peace and beauty.
Just finishing negotiating a damn hard mountain or surviving a drop into a bowl then sitting by the fire afterwards in a ski lodge.
Looking outside on a wintery day and knowing I have no place to go.
Won't we miss the snow? As we face the end of it and the beginning of something else; we should all be terrified about this, if not for us, for future generations. Then again, maybe we really don't care about them.
I mourn the end of snow and the beginning of this something else.
I mourn the end of snow in California.
https://www.goodreads.com/photo/autho...
August 1, 2014
Gasping. Looking at an Alpine Lake, Dying.
Or: THE CA DROUGHT-IN MY FACE.
I live in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. It is a rough climatic zone because it does not rain from about June-October, no, from June-November, no from June-December, no, from June-January.
Last year, we did not receive any serious rain until January 2014 and every year, the rain comes later.
Yes. You may have heard, California is facing extreme drought and every year, California gets hotter. Climate change is playing itself out here, hot and heavy.
It is all over--news and warnings about the drought, increased fines for wasting water, emails from utility companies, little pamphlets included with our bills entitled in capital letters: "CONSERVING CALIFORNIA'S WATER". I know. I have lived in this state a long time. I know. Or did I.
One thing Northern Californians love to do in the summer (with our dogs) is swim in our rivers and lakes. I know, who doesn't, but I would say it borders on a religious practice here, particularly for those of us without air conditioning (or the desire to pay a bill for it). It is one of our/my greatest joys, to hike to an alpine lake and jump in, the icy cold jarring you, daring you to stay in, even dive under.
(See my photos-Alpine Paradise)
For the past decade I have lived here, I have been taking a break from the heat by heading up to a set of alpine lakes about an hour away. The surroundings are stirring though not pristine. This region is far too close to a few cities. The area can be busy. You can run into someone you know from town, or not. I ran into some Germans a few years ago. Still, the lakes are clear and cold, the surroundings are alpine, and the experience is invigorating.
Yesterday I headed to one of my favorite little alpine lakes that I am not going to tell you the real name of because I don't want any more people there. Sorry. (You can't blame me. CA has the highest population of our 50 states). I will call it "Little Alpine Lake". I would say it is about a 20 acre lake.
I didn't know what to expect except that LAL would be lower. It is hard for me to describe my shock when I saw LAL. This summer it is not the deep, cold, blue lake I have known. It is only August 1 and LAL is already half its normal size. The water was shallow, warm, and the beach, well, there is one now. It took me for such a start, I had tears in my eyes. Where is my lake?
Things here are dire. As I type, volunteers are literally rescuing fish out of water (because there isn't enough anymore) lying around in what used to be the Little Truckee River. Hundreds of people are literally picking up hundreds of fish, and moving them back into water.
When even our mountain lakes are drying out, our natural reservoirs, in AUGUST (with the potential for the rains to be another five months away, if we get any at all) you get, really quick, the meaning of the words "extreme drought".
I got in LAL, or now LAP (for "pond"). Unlike the past few years, the water was warm, alarmingly warm. It felt good though. On the bottom was something I had never seen before, algae. Algae that will bloom ever more as the summer wears on-possibly killing all the organisms in the lake by sucking up all the oxygen.
It felt strange, to be swimming in this version of LAL. I felt guilty enjoying the warmer water.
It wasn't as much fun. It wasn't fun at all. I felt sad splashing around. What was this lake to me? A friend? An ecosystem? Our survival? I got out and sat on the now wide beach.
I'm worried. When will those with the real power get damn worried, enough to make some serious changes? This time, it's about saving our own butts. Don't we want to save our own butts and, maybe, just maybe, the butts of future generations?
Just what in the fk is it going to take?
Then again, maybe the human species is ready to call it a day on planet Eaarth or planet Eaarth is ready to call it day with us. How sad when we knowingly pit ourselves against our own planet, no wait, how stupid.
The Eaarth versus humans. Wonder who's going to win.
I live in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. It is a rough climatic zone because it does not rain from about June-October, no, from June-November, no from June-December, no, from June-January.
Last year, we did not receive any serious rain until January 2014 and every year, the rain comes later.
Yes. You may have heard, California is facing extreme drought and every year, California gets hotter. Climate change is playing itself out here, hot and heavy.
It is all over--news and warnings about the drought, increased fines for wasting water, emails from utility companies, little pamphlets included with our bills entitled in capital letters: "CONSERVING CALIFORNIA'S WATER". I know. I have lived in this state a long time. I know. Or did I.
One thing Northern Californians love to do in the summer (with our dogs) is swim in our rivers and lakes. I know, who doesn't, but I would say it borders on a religious practice here, particularly for those of us without air conditioning (or the desire to pay a bill for it). It is one of our/my greatest joys, to hike to an alpine lake and jump in, the icy cold jarring you, daring you to stay in, even dive under.
(See my photos-Alpine Paradise)
For the past decade I have lived here, I have been taking a break from the heat by heading up to a set of alpine lakes about an hour away. The surroundings are stirring though not pristine. This region is far too close to a few cities. The area can be busy. You can run into someone you know from town, or not. I ran into some Germans a few years ago. Still, the lakes are clear and cold, the surroundings are alpine, and the experience is invigorating.
Yesterday I headed to one of my favorite little alpine lakes that I am not going to tell you the real name of because I don't want any more people there. Sorry. (You can't blame me. CA has the highest population of our 50 states). I will call it "Little Alpine Lake". I would say it is about a 20 acre lake.
I didn't know what to expect except that LAL would be lower. It is hard for me to describe my shock when I saw LAL. This summer it is not the deep, cold, blue lake I have known. It is only August 1 and LAL is already half its normal size. The water was shallow, warm, and the beach, well, there is one now. It took me for such a start, I had tears in my eyes. Where is my lake?
Things here are dire. As I type, volunteers are literally rescuing fish out of water (because there isn't enough anymore) lying around in what used to be the Little Truckee River. Hundreds of people are literally picking up hundreds of fish, and moving them back into water.
When even our mountain lakes are drying out, our natural reservoirs, in AUGUST (with the potential for the rains to be another five months away, if we get any at all) you get, really quick, the meaning of the words "extreme drought".
I got in LAL, or now LAP (for "pond"). Unlike the past few years, the water was warm, alarmingly warm. It felt good though. On the bottom was something I had never seen before, algae. Algae that will bloom ever more as the summer wears on-possibly killing all the organisms in the lake by sucking up all the oxygen.
It felt strange, to be swimming in this version of LAL. I felt guilty enjoying the warmer water.
It wasn't as much fun. It wasn't fun at all. I felt sad splashing around. What was this lake to me? A friend? An ecosystem? Our survival? I got out and sat on the now wide beach.
I'm worried. When will those with the real power get damn worried, enough to make some serious changes? This time, it's about saving our own butts. Don't we want to save our own butts and, maybe, just maybe, the butts of future generations?
Just what in the fk is it going to take?
Then again, maybe the human species is ready to call it a day on planet Eaarth or planet Eaarth is ready to call it day with us. How sad when we knowingly pit ourselves against our own planet, no wait, how stupid.
The Eaarth versus humans. Wonder who's going to win.
March 11, 2014
Varied Thrush
There is a sound you have to hear before you die. Then you have to tell me if the sound does the same thing to you that it does to me.
Living in Alaska means doing your laundry or walking the dog in the daylight at 1 a.m. Yes, you read this right. It is a strange and delicate time. It might make you laugh out loud for no reason. It also might make you cover your windows with throw rugs. You are outside, under the firs, hanging your laundry while a moose ambles by, eying your broccoli in your raised beds. The moose keeps going. You drop your underwear on the ground and bend over to pick it up then you hear it. The sound. The sound that in my mind will always be associated with "summer nights" in Anchorage, Alaska. There is not much to it--it is only one tone but it's the lilting that does it. It lilts in the beginning then lilts at the end and in between, it takes you some place ancient and vast, far away. Whatever I was doing, I always stopped when I heard it because you HAVE to.
The vet told me there was no hope for my old friend, Siggy. I picked her up my last years of college when she ran into our dorm building in Athens, Ohio. A collie-shepherd mix. My companion of the heart as any dog adorer knows. This is where they go--into your heart--and stay. She was 15. She spent her last years with me in Alaska where I was fortunate enough to get a job as a biologist, an opportunity many would kill for. It was our last "night" together. The next morning, the vet was showing up to put her to sleep, a tumor on her jaw that had been removed twice was now growing back. It was the size of a golf ball. The cancer was spreading. Soon, the vet told me, she will be in constant pain.
Around 1 a.m. we left the house in our rural Alaskan subdivision for our last walk together; walking through the rich fir and spruce trees that lined the empty dirt roads, she and I. Despite the cancer, she walked beside me faithfully, well. We walked on then we heard it--the sound, that made both of us stop to listen. Siggy cocked her head. I cried. The sound of Alaska. The sound of goodbye. I said goodbye to my dear friend the next morning then that night listened to the varied thrush alone.
The sound of Alaska is here, on my acre of land in Northern California--the kinglets and the sandhill cranes up high that I cannot see but I can hear. But nothing evokes in me...
Last week, I thought I heard it. I stopped what I was doing to listen then ran up the hill, after it. Nothing. Then I heard it again the next evening. Today I saw it, on two legs, hoping and flying within a flock of robins--varied thrushes--another sound of Alaska. The sound of goodbye.
I cannot express how this sound, the presence of these birds, is affecting me, forcing me into reverie, memories, pain. I see Siggy again, she and I, walking that last time into the eeriness of an Alaskan "night". I remember a fight with a lover when we both stopped arguing, the call of the varied thrush filled the space between us. He didn't notice while I did. Now they are here? On my land in California? I have too much too do. I am teaching this semester. I have papers to grade. I cannot stand on top of my hill and cry. But I did. I will.
And I will be grateful for the sound these birds make, for where the sound forces me to go, for what their presence symbolizes, both spiritually to me, and ecologically. I will stop what I am doing to listen. And once again, face myself.
Living in Alaska means doing your laundry or walking the dog in the daylight at 1 a.m. Yes, you read this right. It is a strange and delicate time. It might make you laugh out loud for no reason. It also might make you cover your windows with throw rugs. You are outside, under the firs, hanging your laundry while a moose ambles by, eying your broccoli in your raised beds. The moose keeps going. You drop your underwear on the ground and bend over to pick it up then you hear it. The sound. The sound that in my mind will always be associated with "summer nights" in Anchorage, Alaska. There is not much to it--it is only one tone but it's the lilting that does it. It lilts in the beginning then lilts at the end and in between, it takes you some place ancient and vast, far away. Whatever I was doing, I always stopped when I heard it because you HAVE to.
The vet told me there was no hope for my old friend, Siggy. I picked her up my last years of college when she ran into our dorm building in Athens, Ohio. A collie-shepherd mix. My companion of the heart as any dog adorer knows. This is where they go--into your heart--and stay. She was 15. She spent her last years with me in Alaska where I was fortunate enough to get a job as a biologist, an opportunity many would kill for. It was our last "night" together. The next morning, the vet was showing up to put her to sleep, a tumor on her jaw that had been removed twice was now growing back. It was the size of a golf ball. The cancer was spreading. Soon, the vet told me, she will be in constant pain.
Around 1 a.m. we left the house in our rural Alaskan subdivision for our last walk together; walking through the rich fir and spruce trees that lined the empty dirt roads, she and I. Despite the cancer, she walked beside me faithfully, well. We walked on then we heard it--the sound, that made both of us stop to listen. Siggy cocked her head. I cried. The sound of Alaska. The sound of goodbye. I said goodbye to my dear friend the next morning then that night listened to the varied thrush alone.
The sound of Alaska is here, on my acre of land in Northern California--the kinglets and the sandhill cranes up high that I cannot see but I can hear. But nothing evokes in me...
Last week, I thought I heard it. I stopped what I was doing to listen then ran up the hill, after it. Nothing. Then I heard it again the next evening. Today I saw it, on two legs, hoping and flying within a flock of robins--varied thrushes--another sound of Alaska. The sound of goodbye.
I cannot express how this sound, the presence of these birds, is affecting me, forcing me into reverie, memories, pain. I see Siggy again, she and I, walking that last time into the eeriness of an Alaskan "night". I remember a fight with a lover when we both stopped arguing, the call of the varied thrush filled the space between us. He didn't notice while I did. Now they are here? On my land in California? I have too much too do. I am teaching this semester. I have papers to grade. I cannot stand on top of my hill and cry. But I did. I will.
And I will be grateful for the sound these birds make, for where the sound forces me to go, for what their presence symbolizes, both spiritually to me, and ecologically. I will stop what I am doing to listen. And once again, face myself.
