Just about this time of the day, there should be a clacking, squaking raucous crowd of about 50 large birds who come crashing in, and clean up all of the birdseed. A month ago, they were hard to recognize because they were solid gray. Yesterday they were a beautiful color of periwinkle blue. They stay blue all summer and then darken up for winter again.
The finches, bluebirds and juncos are there with dependability each day as long as I put out the seeds. The mountain is a purple shadow today. The snow is nearly melted on the north side of the ridge bewteen the junipers. The sun is shining. We are listening to Bruce Cockburn on the ipod. And there are very small occasional bits of cloud fluff floating by.
Why worry about whether Citibank just bought a 50 million dollar luxury jet with our bailout money? Why care whether Vilsack is now the Secretary of Agriculture? (He from Montsanto, heavy into genetically engineered seeds and mis-labeled roundup which is, in fact, not biodegradable.) Why care whether the Republicans are going to make a stand against the stimulus package because the 300 billion dollars of tax cuts is not enough?
After JFK, Martin Luther King, and Bobby Kennedy were murdered, after the Viet Nam War, after Nixon, I was among the many of my generation who backed out of involvement. I grew an organic garden, got my consciousness raised, became a psychotherapist, created music and focused on family and friends. I started reading fiction rather than non.
But with this new guy, this Obama, I somehow got charged up again. There is a glimmer of hope which opens a little window of invitation to come and get going again. John and I canvassed for him in Indiana and worked in the polls there. Now we are determining which service area we want to be involved with.
I'm working on my novel here in the mountains. It needs a second draft. And watching the birds. And wondering if this will be another false start or whether our new President will match his actions to his words.
P.S. Here they are! It's 2:24 pm and blammo! incoming jays!
