A Circular Journey Day

Some mornings you wake up knowing deep down inside that it's going to be one of those days to write home about; one of those days to take home to Mother.

Golden-crowned Kinglet

You wake up feeling like you've got the world on a string, you're sitting on a rainbow, and you've got a song to sing that can right any wrong.

And I, of course, have an additional blessing, I've got a miracle-working woman in my life--I have, Ms. Wonder, and she keeps the world in balance--not too little and not too much, but just right!

What a world! What a life! I'm in love!

But brace yourself, and forgive me for bearing bad news, but this morning is not one of those mornings.

Instead of rainbows and worlds on strings, I woke this morning with a return of the dreaded vertigo. And to make it worse, Ms. Wonder has left for Raleigh.

Consequently, I'm alone for the entire day with nothing to depend on but me--well, me and my walking cane made from a red oak tree that once grew beside the Brazos River near Waco, Texas.

What's the Brazos got to do with it? The Brazos, known to the early Spanish explorers as the Río de los Brazos de Dios ("the Arms of God"), originates in the high plains of New Mexico and empties into the Gulf of Mexico near Galveston Bay in Texas.

Why am I bringing the Brazos into this post? It's because with so much history and heritage behind that red oak tree, my walking cane must surely have powerful mojo and what I need today is all the mojo I can get.

And so the setup is like this: vertigo, dizziness, and a complete absence of Ms. Wonders versus, the Walking Cane of God, plenty of Jah's Mercy, and a box seat view of the animal circus in the backyard.

Reflecting on the circumstances, I decided the day was going to be survivable. In fact, I was feeling somewhat bucked as I took my seat on the lanai, caffeine in hand, and began recording birdsong with the Merlin app.

I opened the app and immediately Merlin suggested my randomly selected bird of the day would be the Golden-crowned Kinglet.

Now, I don't expect you to be an ornithologist and I don't expect you to be an Audubon Society member so let me explain.

In folklore, the tiny, fragile, G-c Kinglet symbolizes the importance of remaining flexible and open to change throughout life's journey. My American Indian ancestors viewed the kinglet as a symbol of new beginnings, and hope. 

Eureka! I'm sure you understand why my outlook on the day was back in the sunshine.

Once I clicked "OK", the new recording began, and right out of the gate, you know what I'm about to tell you, don't you? Merlin found a Golden-crowned Kinglet. The very first bird of the day!

I know what you're thinking. You think I'm exaggerating just a teeny bit. But no, my friend. It's true. I'd received a thumbs-up from the Universe telling me that all would be zippy. I mean think of the odds!

Need I tell you that I was bucked? Zip-a-dee-do-dah! You'd be bucked too. Admit it.

I felt like I had the world on a string, sitting on a rainbow, with a song to sing that could make the rain go away if there was rain.

I decided to go for a drive. Nothing major. I wasn't going to Ocean Isle and not going to Southport. No, I would be sensible and not tempt Fate. After all, she has been known to act the Bitch. I'd simply go to Belville, taking the backroads and following the slow speed limits.

I headed out, following the shorter and less traveled back entrance. I had the windows down and was listening to the Billboard Top 40 countdown for the week of Halloween in the year 1980.

Whoomp! What the hell? Suddenly I felt like...well, I'm not sure what it felt like but it wasn't pleasant. 

It was a feeling like Napoleon must have felt when he woke one morning and remembered that Nelson sailed into the Port of Cairo yesterday evening and burned the French fleet. It couldn't have been pleasant for him.

I decided to do a U-turn and go back home. Getting off the road now was my plan. Without room enough for the simpler maneuver, a K-turn was called for, but, foiled again! Another car was close behind me.

I continued out of the village and onto the cross-town highway, which brought me to the main entrance. I made the first right turn and was back in the community commons. Minutes later I was home again.

In less than 10 minutes, I had made a small circle and a steep emotional freefall to arrive back where it all began. Not on the lanai but back in bed, at least until the world stopped spinning. 

For the rest of the day, I'd try being grateful for what I have instead of regretting what I don't. I was reminded of the Rolling Stones theory that...

"You can't always get what you want, but, if you try sometimes, well, you might find you get what you need."

I tried hard to embrace that thought, however, what I couldn't get out of my head was the assertion by P.G. Wodehouse that...

"Life is filled with promises of eternal springtime and a God on his throne making all right with the world."

But what is life really? It's a series of sharp corners where Fate lies in wait with another of her practical jokes?"

I hoped I wouldn't encounter another post that ends abruptly, and yet here we are. I'll do my best to return soon to update this post with a happier ending. So, don't lose hope. Remember, we always have tomorrow, and as we all know, tomorrow is another day—and that's something.

Remembering Grandpa

I've been thinking of my grandfather a lot lately. He was a very important man in my life and I miss him. All my memories of him are fond ones and I'd like to share a few of those memories with you.

Granpa Will & GranMa Mexie

My Grandpa Will taught me that the only meaning in life is the meaning we give it. His was high-stepping proof that a life of gaiety and joy is as much a tonic for the elderly as for the young. Surely, living life to the fullest and enjoying every day while spreading goodness and light is the recipe for a meaningful life.

I try to follow in his footsteps but I find that just as Ringo reminded us, "It don't come easy."

I remember my grandfather as having an attitude much like that of a giddy kid goat frolicking through a meadow of skylarks and wild onions in the springtime. I'll tell you why shortly.

Grandpa was considered a man of few words. Many people, spoke of him as 'the silent type' but he wasn't silent with me. He told me many stories, most of them stories of his younger days. I don't know why he chose to be so open with me but I'm happy that he did.

Mademoiselle from Armentieres

Grandpa didn't tell me war stories. But he often spoke of his time in France during the First World War. I like to think that he would have been a resistance fighter in the French Underground if not for the diverting allure of the weekend barn dances in the villages near the front lines.

He often remarked that a man must fight against the thought that he can quit dancing anytime he likes. A man is easily tempted that he can have one dance without getting into trouble. And then he finds it's the first dance that works it's magic.

He told many tales of sneaking into the villages to dance all night with the French girls and then sneaking back into the trenches before dawn for a couple hours' sleep before the day's fighting began.

 Those stories sometimes ended with him singing a snatch of the Mademoiselle from Armentiers. All I remember of the song is: 

    Mademoiselle from Armentieres, Parley-voo?

    Mademoiselle from Armentieres, Parley-voo?

    Mademoiselle from Armentieres,

    She hasn't been kissed in forty years,

    Hinky, dinky, parley-voo.

Abner had a goat named Finnigan.

If you're not from these parts, I should probably mention that this story my grandfather tells took place in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in Tennessee. The year is somewhere in the mid-1920s.

Grandpa had a friend, back in the day, and the friend was a goatherd of sorts--he kept a small herd of milk goats. He also kept Finnigan, an adult male goat, for the same purpose, I suppose, that one adult male human is often found in small herds of people.

 

Finnigan was known for sneaking up behind people and giving people the butt in the butt. Sort of a battering ram, except in this case a battering goat.

One day my grandfather and Mr. Perrin decided to prank Abner. They hid themselves and waited for Abner to go inside the goat enclosure to fill the feeding trough, which was attached to the outside wall of the small barn. When Abner began pouring corn into the trough, the two practical jokers walked up to the fence and began a conversation with him.

Abner paused, of course, and turned to greet his visitors. This diversion allowed Finnigan time to walk closer to the barn to see what all the fuss was about. When Grandpa and Mr. Perrin saw Finnigan taking an interest, they pushed 'play' to get their little plan started.

"Finish feedin' the goats," Granpa told Abner. "When you finish we'll have a beer on the porch."

"Sure thing," said Abner. "I got a powerful thirst for sure."

Abner turned back to face the trough and the barn wall. That move caught Finnigan's attention. I'm sure Grandpa and Mr. Perrin were elbowing each other as they imagined what was about to happen. Abner bent to pour the grain and Finnigan pawed the ground. It must have been a struggle for the two men to hold their laughter. Finnigan charged.

The goat caught Abner in the seat of the pants just as he was bending. It was a perfect storm of just the right alignment with Abner's head and the barn wall.

The poor man went straight into and through the wall with the feeding trough following him. 

By the time Granpa was halfway through the story, his laughter was as genuine and as hearty as it had been on that day so many years before. Long before he came to the punchline, he was crying with laughter.

Grandpa never repeated stories the way most of us do and although I heard it only that one time, I still remember him sitting on our porch and sharing it with me.

Welcome back to the 21st Century.

My grandfather, W.C. as he was affectionately known, is at the top of my list of favorite relatives. I miss him every day. I always remember him coming out onto the porch after a good meal and pausing to take in the view before placing his hat on the side of his head, dipping it ever so slightly over the right eye, just so.

I used to have a hat exactly like the one he wore and I'm going to have another like it one day. Come to think of it, that's what I want for Christmas. I'll begin looking for it now.

Thanks for reading. It's always good to see you here at The Circular Journey.

A Marvelous Mystery

"‘In the beginning…’—that’s how the first paragraph kicked into gear, and I remember thinking how strange it sounded. The book, "The Story of Earth," was written by Robert Hazen, a prominent scientist from the Carnegie Institution’s geophysical community. 

What I really want to highlight, though, is that this paragraph contains one of the most fascinating, to me at least, and, in some ways, baffling—scientific observations of the century on the origins of the universe.

The author makes the astonishing claim that all space, energy, and matter came into existence in a single moment from—nothing! Yes, you read that right. According to Hazen, before the Big Bang, there was nothing, and then, in a flash, there was everything needed to create...well, everything we know today.

This is where I raise an eyebrow and give Mr. Hazen (and his astrophysicist colleagues) a skeptical look. Why? Because we’ve all heard a thousand times that scientists only trust ideas backed by evidence. And yet here these guys are, asking us to believe that the entire universe sprang from nothing—no evidence, just… belief.

But that’s not the real point I want to dive into today. I know your time is valuable, and I don’t want to waste a moment of it. The real punchline comes when Hazen drops this gem:

“The concept—nothing one moment, everything the next—is beyond our ability to craft metaphors."

It was after reading that sentence, that I had my own Archimedes moment. You know the story: Archimedes, splashing around in his bath, suddenly shouting "Eureka!" Not that I wouldn’t have done the same. 

In fact, that’s exactly what I did when my mind clicked into place, sorting through the data and finding the perfect metaphor for the very concept Hazen thought was beyond our grasp.

How had I not seen it sooner? The metaphor was right in front of me—actually, it was right in front of the paragraph. Another best-selling book contains the perfect metaphor for explaining how everything in the universe came from nothing in an instant. It too begins with the words: 

“In the beginning…”

Those words, so simple, so familiar, are actually one of the clearest metaphors for the mind-bending concept of creation ex nihilo. 

I can't help but think that Hazen knew this all along—that the metaphor was hiding in plain sight. He wasn’t asking us to understand it but to marvel at the mystery of it all. Maybe that’s the real lesson here.

It's all a marvelous mystery and we will probably never fully understand it.

Balance of Power

You have no idea how difficult it can be to get an accurate squirrel population count in my backyard. I was in the lanai trying to be unnoticed and being as still as Lot's wife after her friends played that practical joke on her. I was counting the little goofballs as they rocketed around the lawn and up, over, and through the fence. I was getting counts ranging from seven to eleven. Once I counted twelve.

Ms. Wonder is concerned that we're experiencing an infestation. I think that by feeding them twice daily, we've encouraged residents in larger squirrel cities, to relocate to our more relaxed coastal communities. The problem is, we don't have the infrastructure to support the growth.

Birds were in great abundance this morning too. It's late October and the annual east coast bird migration is only beginning to taper off. I've counted 100 different species in our neighborhood this fall and many of them aren't native to the area. Just as I was about to open the lanai door, a Bluejay began making a racket. It was his signature call.

"Skreeee, skreeee, skreeee!" shouted the Jay.

The animals scattered, some of them falling over themselves trying to get to the safety of the forest. Between the calls from the Jay, I became aware of another call, a sort of high-pitched whistle, coming from much higher, and farther away. 

Hawk! I thought. I quickly checked the Merlin app on my phone. It was a Red-Shouldered Hawk.

I scanned the sky above me but saw nothing. Back into the house and out the front door into the open. The hawk was at least two hundred feet above the edge of our little community,  drifting in great, lazy circles that brought it slowly toward my house.

Breakfast, I thought to myself and I was thinking of his breakfast, not mine. The hawk would be over my house in the next minute or two and I was considering what to do to make my yard seem undesirable to a hawk when a crow crossed my vision flying at rooftop level and heading in the general direction of the trees that border our little village.

"You go girl," I said to the crow thinking she was planning to give the hawk a dose of grief for invading her home turf. But you be careful, I thought. "There's only one of you and you don't have his razor-sharp, bone-crushing talons."

Before I finished the thought, another crow appeared flying in the same direction as the first. Then a second, a third, until there were six crows, all heading to the same part of the forest.

I knew what they were planning, of course, and you do too. They were going to review their attack plans, synchronize their watches, and perform their duty.

About 15 minutes later, the hawk was directly over the houses that line the cul-de-sac in front of my house. In another 10 minutes, he would be directly over my backyard.

That's when I heard it. The collective chatter of a murder of crows. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that 'murder' is the correct name for a group of crows. Regular followers of The Circular Journey know these things. If you're a newcomer to the blog, then welcome. It's good to have you here.

One of the crows, probably near the crow flying in the point position, made a different sound. Hard to describe it. I don't pretend to be an expert on crow battle tactics, but I expect she was providing the leader with intelligence updates on recent developments in the hawk's position, orientation, and tactical response to the crow advance. Don't you agree?

Whatever information she was relaying, I'm sure it was something like, "There's only six of us, Ma'am. That hawk is spoiling for a fight, and he has bone-crushing, razor-sharp talons."

"Caaagghh," said the leader, and to me it seemed she was saying, "I'm not asking you, Lieutenant. Damn the talons! Full speed ahead!"

I could hear the other crows encouraging each other with caws of support.

"The Old Girl will get us through. The Old Girl ain't afraid of nothin'!" they said.

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I pumped a fist toward the sky. "Wait 'til you see the whites of his eyes," I cried, "and then give him hell!"

It wasn't much but I wanted to show my support and appreciation of their efforts. I suppose I was a cheerleader of sorts.

Although thinking of myself as a pacificist, I could support the crow attack without reserve because I knew the hawk wouldn't be hurt in the attack. Physically, I mean. His ego would be bruised quite severely and he might possibly need therapy to get over it. But he'd be alright.

What I witnessed was something that I like to call a 'balance of power'. It's something that Mother Nature stumbled across years ago and it's one of her best discoveries, if you want my opinion.

I think it would benefit the humans among us if they used the concept in forming their governments. Think of it. Different branches of government serving as watchdogs over the other branches.

And so there you have it; the beginning of my Sunday morning. As I drove out of the neighborhood, I caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a hawk twisting, turning, diving, and generally trying to get away from a murder of crows intent on giving him hell.

On my way to meet the Island Irv at Cafe Luna, I felt like all was right with the world. The squirrels and birds in my backyard were safe for another day and I had a story to tell the islander over coffee.