Crane Songs and Interlopers

In a culture that embraces 7-second videos, erasable Snapchats and 140-character "stories," it is refreshing to stand on a wooden bridge on a warm Spring evening, awaiting a group of birds whose ancestors have been wending their way through Nebraska for, perhaps, millions of years.

Yes, it requires patience, which can be hard for an impatient people.

Oh, and it requires silence, too, which seems much more difficult to honor when a few hundred strangers are lured by curiosity to this structure that spans a narrow channel of the Platte River. 

In many ways, we are like Veruca Salt--We want the world, we want the whooooole world, and we want it now.

Fortunately, what we want matters not a whit to a Sandhills crane, who somehow knows that, tonight, sunset is at 8 p.m.   Not 7:56 or 7:57.  But 8.  Which means that, tonight, it shall swoop and swirl, ever lower to the ground, playing with its mates for a few more minutes before Mother Nature hollers that "It is time to come home NOW!"

And, if the humans have hung around long enough, if we haven't let impatience or basketball scores or thoughts of the warmth of our cars pull us off of that knobby bridge, then we get to watch the cranes come home to roost for the night, burbling their good-nights to one another as they pour from the sky like warm honey, alighting on the sand bars around us.

When we finally turn from the bridge to make the trek back to our cars, catching one more glance of the gathering birds as we do, we realize it wasn't what we'd expected.  It wasn't instant or fast.  It wasn't a head-ducking onslaught or an epic car-chase scene. 

But it was ancient and beautiful, scattered and undulating.  All set against the monastic thrum of avian singing. 

Human Nature

I have spent 52 years as a bumbling human being, so it should come as no surprise that I give human attributes to things that are not human.  It is, after all,  the measuring stick I know best.

And so it was that I held my breath for nearly 20 minutes the other morning, watching a spider cling furiously to our windshield as Mark and I headed to Pioneers Park for a little walkabout.  From the moment we pulled out of our garage and I caught sight of him (nor do I hesitate to apply gender, either, despite having not one bit of evidence to back it up), I felt bad.  I felt bad because we were taking him from the only world he knows, even if that world is a clunky, small two-car garage filled with bikes and old skateboards.  I felt bad because, at any moment, despite my careful driving, he could be unhinged from our windshield and violently hurtled into the scary, bigger world, where, no doubt, he would die a horrible death.

But I also felt hopeful.  I was hopeful that, if he could just hang on, he'd end up at a much more interesting juncture than a 3-bedroom house on Woods Avenue.  And so it was that, by the time we pulled into the Nature Center's parking lot, I was able to nudge my little arachnid friend into a fine swath of prairie, where, I imagine, he is impressing the myriad spider ladies with tales of great derring-do.

I see those same human qualities when I watch Finn interact with my family.  Just this morning, I was certain that Finn's heart had grown too big for his scraggly chest, so full of love was he as he nudged his wet nose into Allison's sleepy face.  What a wonderful thing it would be to have a tail that expresses emotion, I thought, as I watched him wag his way into Allison's grudging heart, where he won her over with sniffs and licks and gentle pawing.

What's most ironic about my willingness to give human traits to things that are not human, though,  is the fact that my interactions with these non humans invariably end up making me more human.

How is that possible?

I suppose the more accurate question is:  How is it not possible that our interaction with things that are not human inevitably leave us fuller, more alive?

The danger of a human-centric approach to this life is that, if taken to the extreme, it leaves us believing we are, somehow, the top of the pyramid, the being to which all other beings bow.  Spend a moment with the food pyramid, though, and we are quickly reminded that the things that end up on the top of that pyramid are best enjoyed in moderation.  No life is lived well or long if we only seek out the things that reside within the top of that pyramid. 

Hey, I've got nothing against humans.  I am one, after all.  But I also have nothing against all the other things in this world that wake each day with beating hearts, with fears and hopes, with the desire to see one more sunset and to wake again the next morning to yet another chapter. 

And I'm pretty sure that--whether or not I give them human attributes--they have the potential to make me something more just by being in this world.

Sunshine Superman

I'm not much of a collector.  Never have been.  Yes, I've got a shoebox full of empty Carefree Gum wrappers from the 1970s, but--really?  That is just stupid.

Mark is much more of a collector than I ever will be.  And, yes, while I sometimes deride his latest "historical" purchases (read: cheap, broken, old stuff that we can afford), I must admit that his acquisitions have upped the "cool" factor of the Man Room, even if I'm not sure what all of these things are.

 (Note to self:  Take photos of these things and post them so that others might enjoy them).

But, today, at least, I finally collected something worthwhile--heaping pocketfuls of warm sunshine.  As much as I hate to pay insurance, I know that it is a valuable investment against an uncertain future.  And, on a warm day that suggests this ridiculous winter is almost over, I grabbed handfuls of insurance--glowing, vitamin-D filled handfuls of sunshine that I stowed away "just in case."  Which, in this case, was about 5 p.m., when  a vigorous cold front uprooted the patio umbrella and I had to find my cardigan. Again.

I think that this willingness to invest in insurance--at least the natural kind--is one of the most endearing qualities of a Midwesterner.  We know, after all, that things can change in the blink of an eye.  And so,  we work very hard to be present in the moment and enjoy the good things that come our way, however fleeting they might be.

If you were one of the four Lincolnites who stayed indoors today, then you have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about.  If you stayed indoors, then you missed the magical, jagged lines of geese who honked their way through town.  You missed the lacrosse team practicing at Woods Park.  The new neighbors, excitedly establishing their place on Woods Avenue.  If you spent the day indoors, then you missed the chance to hear Robins scratching through the leftover leaves in your garden, searching for a mid-day snack. 

Really, if you spent the day indoors, then you just plain missed out.  And, I suspect, the crumbling remains of your insurance, collected on a long-ago October evening--or, as some might describe it, your quivering, overpriced Obamacare of hopes set against a suddenly wind-lashed landscape--well, let's just say that your coverage has come up short today.

Fortunately, it's supposed to hit the 60s again, come Monday.  So, stay perky, my weather-worn friend.  And open up your life to the warmth that will return in 48 short hours.  It is, after all, insurance against these long, strange days of early spring.

Liar, Liar, Heart on Fire

I'm a lousy faker.  That doesn't stop me from thinking I'm clever, though.  Take today, for instance.   After church, as my friend Jill edged her car onto Capital Parkway,  I "remembered" that both of my children were working at Ideal Grocery.

"Wanna stop by and see them?" she asks, because that's what a good friend does, even if she knows she's being used. 

"Huh.  Well, I suppose we could.  I do need some peppers."  (Really, that's what I said.  Appalling, I know.  But you can't make this stuff up.)

We pull into the parking lot and I can't get out of her car quick enough.  And there, just beyond the greeting cards and Easter candy, are my children.  These two humans--Eric and Allison Holt--have been a part of my life for the past 21 and 18 years, respectively.  You'd think I'd get used to them, then.

And yet, . . .

All I have to do is walk through those doors and catch a secret glimpse of them talking with each other around the cash register, and I get all gooey inside.  I stand there for a moment, half discovered, wearing my truth--a heavy, warm love sitting atop my shoulders--like a handmade scarf that hugs me.

I can't for the life of me remember the fake grocery list I'd just uttered in the car, not now, with my children by my side. 

What's a woman to do but shamelessly lie and position and inch her way into these lives whose anchors are loosening themselves a bit more each day?

Oh, but I do want them to fly, these two children--adults, really--who are kind and funny and hard-working.  I want them to circle the earth and soak in all of its beauty.  I want their hearts to burst and their brains to swell with images and knowledge and friends and things that they could never have conjured up inside our house.

They need to leave.  And yet they still need Mark and me, too.

Like human Spirographs, they circle and dance and circumscribe their way into and out of our lives.  And me?   I tell lies that put me in their paths, where I happily glimpse their full and happy lives, warming myself in the glow.

A Sunshiney Story for a Winter Too Long

This week's weather seems to have put everyone in a mood.  Facebook-for-50-year-olds, usually rife with Pinterest recipes, photos of burbling grandbabies and updates about Husker basketball (Nebrasketball, they're calling it!), reads like a Hells Angels convention pamphlet these days.  So much doom and gloom, not to mention so many specific and violent threats aimed Mother Nature's way.  Or Ken Shimek's way.  Or whoever is to blame's way.

Maybe it is because of all these despairing posts--the utter disgust spat out by frozen fingertips pounding keyboards--that an old, happy-ending story has crept back into my view.  I now believe the story, which I witnessed nearly 20 years ago, has bubbled up into my consciousness so that we might know "What Life Will Be Like When Daffodils Bloom Again."

I know I've written about this before, but times are hard, which gives me permission to repeat myself.

"What Life Will Be Like When Daffodils Bloom Again"

It was early summer and I was just heading into the Sunken Gardens with Rasta, the fine family hound, after our early-morning jaunt around the bike trail.  There below us were two dogs--one very wet, yipping Yellow Lab bounding around the fish pond and his sputtering, small friend who was trapped amongst the lily pads.  No matter how much he urged his friend to the pool's edge, the little guy was absolutely helpless to get there.

It really was a pathetic sight, watching these two misfit friends both wanting the same thing and neither finding a way to make it happen.  So I did what any dog-loving fool in need of a happy ending would do.  I tied up Rasta and waded into the pool.

The lab was beside himself as I neared his little friend, barking and bounding around the pool, offering me directions so I wouldn't muck up the rescue.  His friend, I suppose, was aware of me, but only in that vague way that a desperate being senses someone else's presence.  I scooped up the little fella and slogged my way to the pool's edge, where his friend could hardly contain himself.

As soon as his wet paws hit the ground, those two dogs--absolutely elated to be together again--ran wild circles around each other and then sprinted through the park to some unknown destination, where I hope they are today (because this is a happy-ending story and I am its writer).

Soon enough, then, I imagine we will all be given a gift, a string of glorious, warm days set against a bright blue backdrop.  And we will be beside ourselves, nearly tripping over our tennis-shoe clad feet to gather together again outside, blubbering like happy idiots.  We will be like long-lost friends, reunited after some unspeakable darkness, unable to contain our glee.

That is the gift of this harshest of winters.  A reunion like no other.

Of Kooser and Cranes

I count four piles scattered lovingly around my house:  my grey-and-yellow backpack filled with down mittens, a scarf, a Thinsulate hat and some kleenex; a torn garbage-can liner stuffed with my sleeping bag (good to 20 degrees) and a fleece blanket that Allison sewed me one Christmas; my new egglant-colored snow boots, laces loosened and wool socks next to their soles; and my blue-and-white overnight bag, with folded sweaters, a ziploc of toiletries, two games (Quiddler and Doodle Dice) and a pair of fleece pajamas peeking from its opening. 

But the cranes must wait.  And so, these piles will remain today, a modern homage to an ancient migration. 

I am grateful that Ted Kooser stepped in to soften the blow of a windchill- and snow-laden forecast.  Early this morning, he regaled me with small stories of life in the Bohemian Alps, of wild-plum thickets sprung from passerby birds and of entire worlds reflected in the fish-eye lens of spring's first thaw.  And he almost made me forget the cranes standing motionless, their knobby feet anchored atop the icy riverbank.

A Nebraskan is nothing if not patient and hopeful.   If I didn't know that before, I certainly know it now, after turning the pages of  "My Antonia" and "Giants in the Earth."   I know that we are patient and hopeful because my neighbor Jody just asked if we'd like to hear a bluegrass band do their thing in her backyard this summer.  One does not make such plans without the audacious certainty that warmth and green grass will again return. 

And, while it is true that our snow shovels still lean just outside the back door, it is also true that the recent felling of our neighbor's Silver Maple made us dream of taut-skinned tomatoes sunning themselves even longer now on a hot, August day.

I suppose I will spend most of today indoors, aside from a walk or two with Finn and an outing to the store.  I will sit in the comfy chair, the one anchored close to our French doors, where I will watch the storm unfold.  And I suppose my mind occasionally will head up the Interstate 90 miles to where the cranes are shaking the cold from their limbs, scouring fallowed fields for warmth and kernels of corn.