January 24: Another cold night

The temperature atop Mt. Washington yesterday, with wind chill, was -85 degrees. While my day began at a balmy -2, it only improved to 9 degrees by day's end. In the car headlights as I pulled into my driveway, I could see the rhododendron's leaves curled up in tight rolls against the cold, frozen fingers of green. And during those brief seconds as I ran between car and house, I could only pick out a couple of stars, as if they too were seeking refuge on this frigid night.

Even the waxing moon
shrinks from this cold
behind a veil of frost.

January 23: 0 Degrees

Yesterday it was so cold that my brain was frozen. So, no post. Today it's even colder, but somehow seeing this in my car this morning inspired me:

Zero degrees--
a single cold egg
in an owl's January nest.

January 21: Gulls at the dump

Spent a perfect morning birding with a friend at Reid State Park. Cold, but little wind, bright sun, blue skies, birds bobbing in the waves. I even saw a longed-for life bird, a Dovekie, actively feeding very close to shore.

But no day of birding is complete without a stop at the local dump. So after our beach outing, the natural next stop was the Bath Landfill--to study gulls, of course. Thanks to a couple of nearby eagles, the gulls were all aswirl. Watching hundreds of white birds circling en masse above my head was a truly mesmerizing experience, akin to watching a snow storm in car headlights. Look closely at this photo. At a cursory glance, it looks like empty blue sky, but see all those tiny white specks? Those are gulls!

A dump worker referred to them as "dump ducks" and probably thought we were crazy. But there's no better place to observe gulls. Despite the great numbers of birds, we only picked out two unusual gulls amid the swirling swarm: a Glaucous and an Iceland Gull, both white-winged species. But standing there watching all those moving, shifting birds, I felt a true awe--similar to the feeling of looking up at a night sky strewn with stars.

Mesmerized by gulls. Photo by Derek Lovitch.

Gulls at the dump--
surprised to feel such awe
while surrounded by trash.

January 20: Blown by the wind

A mound of twigs and leaves, perhaps a fallen squirrel's nest, sits on the snow in my neighbor's back yard. As I peer at it, trying to figure out exactly what it is, a large brown oak leaf skitters across the snow. The leaf pauses until the next gust. When I next look out, it's gone, blown in the river, undoubtedly on its way to being swept downstream.

Oak leaf blowing
across the snow.
Sometimes I feel like that.

January 19: The Men's Room

My husband is getting his hair cut at a place in Portland especially for men. Frankly, this place is a lot more fun than where I get my hair cut. Free beer, pool table, leather couch with widescreen TV playing sports, good alt rock on the sound system, a cute wandering dog, hot 30-something guys with facial hair coming and going... A thin woman all in black with long blonde hair is cutting my husband's hair, making him laugh. And you can buy a cigar on your way out.

 

Fashion mags tell me short hair is coming back for women.

 

Comforts of the hair salon.

Some days I want

to cut it all off.

 

Posted with Blogsy

January 18: Ducks flying upriver

Startled by whistling wings
of ducks flying
up the frozen river.

January 17: Before dawn

Some mornings I wake up ridiculously early and can't fall back asleep...

Hour before dawn--
cat still curled in sleep,
crow's caw in the dark.

January 16: Snow falls all day

Quietly but without stop the snow fell, a constant backdrop all day long through my office windows as I assiduously typed away at some grant applications. The dreaminess of the scene--the pure white flakes once again restoring the beauty of winter, mesmerizing in their continuous falling, falling--lulled me into memories of younger days when walking hand-in-hand on a snowy night was romantic, and winter camping was a regular weekend activity.

I don't remember cold.
Back then, I think snow sizzled
on my bare skin.

January 15: Nine squirrels

My husband noticed them first: a bunch of gray squirrels disporting themselves in the trees behind the neighbor's house. The leafless branches made them particularly visible as they flung themselves from limb to skinny limb. We tried to count, "Four, five... no, six..." We ended up at nine. Three or four would be chasing each other in a line, slinking rapidly along a branch and up a trunk. Without knowing a male from a female gray squirrel, we had no way of knowing what sorts of social interactions were going on, what hormones were wafting unseen through those bare trees. Was this a bachelor party? A gang? Girls' day out? A singles mixer? Or perhaps the squirrels were, like us, simply enjoying being out of their nests and active in the warmer air of this January thaw.

Nine gray squirrels in trees--
I'm overcome with an urge
to fling myself into the air.

January 14: Thaw

The usual January Thaw is upon us, but it's difficult not to read into the melting snow, oozing mud, and prematurely budding shrubbery something more ominous. Global climate change is the giant elephant sitting in the middle of the room that is our planet. So we can't simply enjoy this brief reprieve from the bitter cold of last week, because we've lost our sense of what's normal anymore. Our climate compass needle is spinning wildly, even as the North Star poises above my house just as it always has. Even the simple love song of the chickadee gives me pause. I know chickadees sometimes sing in winter, but I couldn't help but feel anxious for some reason when I heard one sing today.

Chickadee's premature song--
is it the thought of love
or bad timing that concerns me?

January 13: Wet enough for a duck

The view from inside looked bleak, foggy. As he stepped out the front door, my husband mused, "I wonder how wet it is out here." We had barely talken two steps on our walk into town for brunch when we both laughed. A drake Mallard stood there right in front of us, about to make his way across the street, hundreds of yards away from the river. On this day that felt more like mid-March than January, I guess it was wet enough for him to take a little stroll away from the water.

Why did the duck cross the road?

When we got to town, we had brunch at a restaurant on the waterfront. The inner harbor was brimming full, a just-past-new-moon high tide, the waters still and calm. Curtis Island in the outer harbor was muted by fog and looked farther away than it really was. As we ate, we watched a single coot meander among the empty floats and cocooned windjammers. A loon surfaced with a sea urchin in its bill. Along the public landing, the very air felt laden with moisture, our wet breath making clouds each time we exhaled.

Morning of mist, tides,
ducks pacing wet streets.
Our bodies contain oceans.