Route 153

The Silence of June June 27, 2013

Each morning, I think maybe I’ll write a blog post. Each morning, I don’t. Something stops me—the everyday work and tasks, or something I hear on the news or read on the Internet that paralyzes me with sadness or depression or hopelessness or envy, and I just don’t want to talk about it, or anything.

Vermont has been hot and wet and humid and more like summer in Maryland than summer in Vermont.

This month, I have continued negotiations with a potential new client. I have schmoozed with trustees. (Elsewhere, for a few hours, I was a schmoozee.) I have washed all the windows. I have asked for a raise. I have paid my taxes. I have gone to farmers markets and broken down buying-club orders. I have played pétanque. I have had my appliances serviced and my car recalled. I have spent time with usual-suspect friends and with new friends and with friends I seldom see but am getting to know better. I have wondered why I never see certain friends anymore. I have wondered if I am at all likeable. I have biked and birded and walked and worked out. I have caught glimpses of my aging body and thought WTF? I have gone to the theater, alone, in the cool sweet dark on a hot afternoon. I have watched the much-anticipated fourth season of Arrested Development, and I have begun another tour through Buffy during home workouts. I have dutifully dragged the trash and recycling to the curb each Sunday night. I have been on a beautiful boat on Lake George and have soaked in a hot tub. I have gotten tipsy and bought another painting. I have devoured Mark Bittmann’s VB6. I have introduced myself to the most interesting man in the world. I have finally worn that dress I got for my birthday. I have admitted gift defeat and sent my 14-year-old nephew a gift card aside his sister’s more dimensional offering. I have tried to keep the feeders full. I have called the guy to take the oil tank away. I have checked so many items off the list and have not checked so many items off the list. I have wondered how, when I finally get work again, I will get anything else done. I have wished that the robin outside my house would stop singing Satie’s “Gnossienne No. 1,” as it has become an earworm. I have stuck Emily’s butterfly stickers on my lobes and called them earrings. I have eaten lots of strawberries.

I wish for summer time, to read, to write, to sun, to swim.

2BY9: May List June 3, 2013

I haven’t listed a new bird in a week. Before that, it had been 8 days.

Still, I had a pretty good May, adding 24 birds to raise my total to 158—76 species ahead of last year at this time.

Oddly, when I look at last year’s list, despite the lower number, there are 13 species on it I have yet to list this year. Where is my red-breasted nuthatch? American woodcock? Common snipe? I’ve seen no Cape May warbler, no magnolia warbler, no black-throated green warbler. I should’ve clearly heard a red-eyed vireo by now—maybe I have, but I wasn’t 100% sure. I’ve yet to list a northern harrier, a blue-gray gnatcatcher, a black-crowned night heron, an eastern screech owl. I am 99% sure I’ve heard scarlet tanagers singing, but I have yet to either see one or hear the chick-burr (or, as we like to say, Czech beer!) call note that would clinch it for me.

Haven’t I heard a field sparrow yet? I’m pretty sure I have. Damn. I need to start paying attention and get it on my list.

What I can add is this: tree swallow, warbling vireo, wood duck, belted kingfisher, ovenbird, house wren, Baltimore oriole, American redstart, yellow-bellied sapsucker, northern flicker, gray catbird, ruby-throated hummingbird, chestnut-sided warbler, blue-winged warbler, black-and-white warbler, golden-winged warbler, veery, great-crested flycatcher, ruffed grouse, hermit thrush, spotted sandpiper, bobolink, eastern kingbird, and eastern wood-pewee.

Not bad. But I need to get out there again. Soon.