Linnetontheleaf

I’m a naturally resilient person; I usually bounce back pretty quickly from psychic blows. And even when I don’t, I know how to manage my moods. I treat myself like a spoiled child who needs a lot of treats and rewards to smooth over bumps in the road of life, so when necessary, I provide myself with amusements to distract me from distress. I’m really like a toddler who needs a lollipop to divert attention from a shot. But many of my usual psychological lollipops (meals out, excursions, dinner parties) aren’t available in the conditions of lock-down, and those that remain (take-out, long walks, virtual events) aren’t doing the trick at the moment.

You see, I allowed myself to contemplate the size, complexity and duration of this massive obstacle in our path. The corona virus may be submicroscopic, but its impact is enormous, and today it is crushing me. This is a perfectly reasonable reaction — I’d doubt the sanity of anyone who remains invincibly optimistic just now. But oh, it is uncomfortable.

I want my lollipop!

I reached a milestone yesterday — the last wires were finally removed from my mouth, 19 weeks after they were installed at the end of January. After he clipped the wires immobilizing my jaw in mid-March, the surgeon left the so-called ‘ivy loops’ in place, in case the fracture didn’t heal and needed to be re-wired. Then came the pandemic and the wholesale closure of all such practices (for anything except extreme emergencies), and it was another three months before they office re-opened and the loops could be removed.

Of course, I’d grown pretty accustomed to them by then, but they were always uncomfortable and obtrusive: it wasn’t possible to eat without being aware of them, and brushing teeth was a lot harder. So needless to say, I’m greatly relieved to be rid of them!

In a thoughtful though weird gesture, the surgeon offered to provide sedation for the procedure at no extra charge. ‘You’ve been through enough,’ he said, acknowledging my long wait for the wires to be removed. Apparently this is not a gentle, delicate process! Even sedated, 10 novocain shots are necessary, I suppose because the sedation is pretty light so they need local anesthetic too, to keep from awakening you. Indeed, my whole jaw is tender today from what must have been a rather aggressive procedure. But I was lucky enough to snooze through it in peace and comfort! Now I must get several broken teeth fixed, once my usual dentist re-opens for business; then I can truly put my accident behind me.

If 2020 had included only my fractured jaw, I’d probably still remember this year forever. But my traumatic personal event was soon utterly eclipsed — first by the pandemic and months of lockdown, and then by the social unrest following the police killing of George Floyd. 2020 has been a tumultuous, eventful, exhausting year for everyone. May none of us ever need to endure its like again.

Not that my psychological landscape matters in the least, but I feel better since I last wrote, because the tone of this outcry now seems different from others I’ve lived through. After many flirtations with social/racial change efforts which inevitably fizzle out, maybe we are all (especially us allies) finally irrevocably committed to the difficult, sacrificial path necessary to effect meaningful change. I’m reminded of the long-term, dedicated Occupy Wall Street and 2011 Madrid Indignados movements, but believe today’s warriors possess the mobilizing skills and vision to make dreams reality. I also see much deeper commitment from us allies. I pray so, and I am ready to follow and to work. How can I help? I’ll vote, of course. I can also march, address envelopes, make calls, donate and fund-raise. I’ll also be glad to renounce my advantaged tax exemptions and entitlements to channel my dollars to initiatives I actually support (rather than the military-industrial complex). All of this will be my PRIVILEGE.

When I left the office for the last time on March 13, we envisioned being home for two weeks. Ha! How quickly everything changed, at least for those of us in the densely populated, heavily Covid-impacted northeast. And now, just as it seemed the virus was declining from its peak, we confront something equally distressing — serious social unrest after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis (and countless prior acts of lethal brutality). I was heartened by the cooperative, community-spirited response we saw in the early days of the pandemic, but now our society seems to be unraveling.

It is almost shamefully privileged to sit here with my beloved family in a comfortable suburban home, insulated from the strife on our urban streets. And it is from a position of privilege, too, that I apologetically observe how protesting isn’t safe just now, with the public, police and possible outside agitators confronting one another, everybody with passions flaring, and a potentially deadly virus lurking about. It is also from a position of privilege that I can sit back and philosophically wonder how it advances the cause for me to join the protests to be gassed, injured or catch coronavirus. It wasn’t safe for Martin Luther King either, but he kept marching.

Few possess such courage, and I am not among those better angels. But I need to stop doing nothing. So I’ll salve my conscience with donations to social justice organizations, and by speaking out against intolerance and abuse of power, here and everywhere. It is too little, but if we all do it, we can remake the world.

…I learned on an employee webcast that it will be early September, at the absolute earliest, before my company will contemplate re-opening its offices. It will start with smaller offices in less-affected areas and gradually move towards its most populous campuses in urban areas — probably meaning much later for my packed NYC building. I was rather amazed to hear our leaders say that they understood, and would accommodate, employees’ concerns about things like mass transportation, which used to be the last thing on management’s mind! Maybe we will see a broader, deeper shift in labor policy as a result of all this, in the same way that you always read in the history books that the Black Death was the foundation of the middle class. That would be a silver lining indeed!

…I enjoyed a very fruitful early morning bird walk, seeing countless yellow-rump warblers, yellows and a few common yellow-throats. Also the flame-colored Baltimore oriole, and  the secretive little northern waterthrush which I’d heard was lurking about but which had always eluded me. But my best find wasn’t the most glamorous bird, but the most exciting spot, because I did it by ear, a birder’s feat to which I’ve long aspired. Birding reports told me there was a white-crowned sparrow in the park, so although I’ve seen one before and it’s not a glorious, rare bird, I decided to try to find it. I knew its song was similar to that of the white-throated sparrow, one of the very few birdsongs I can identify.  It starts with the same interval (roughly, a minor 3rd in musical notation), in the same weak, wavery voice, then crumbles into less tuneful buzzing. As I stood under a magical oak tree full of yellow-rumps, I became aware of just such a song nearby, and followed my ears to a bush where I found a bird with unusually crisp black and white stripes on its head. I could see it singing through the binoculars, but  its position prevented me from catching any other field marks.  But I checked the guides at home later, and indeed this was the white-crowned sparrow I’d hoped to find! I was very proud to have succeeded in ‘birding by ear.’

…I had a slight work crisis when I was asked to rework a big project I’d labored over all week, scheduling an intricate series of introductory appointments for a new employee with several dozen busy, important people. Honestly, I was kind of furious — why did you ask me to do this and then, on Friday, with the job nearly done, give me all this extra input necessitating a major do-over? But I was able to solve most of my problem with a simple request which obviated much of the mulligan; I just had to climb out on that limb and ask, maybe not something that someone at my level would ordinarily risk trying. But it worked! I was reminded of a story Leslie Odom, Jr. tells about getting out of a TV contract so he could do HAMILTON — he was warned to ‘lawyer up’ since this was going to be very very hard, but decided to venture just asking first. It worked — the TV execs let him out of his contract, he joined the HAMILTON cast and went on to stardom, Tony awards, etc. What’s the message here? Come in peace, expecting cooperation rather than confrontation.

Not a bad day!

Today I darned a sock. This is not another piece about how we locked-down urban life-forms are all learning new skills, especially homely ones like making sourdough. It is an exploration of the psychology behind that act. I have never darned a sock in my life; it never even occurred to me. Socks are cheap and (until now) readily available — if one gets a hole, throw it away and buy more! (I do at least have the thrifty/practical protocol of wearing only generic black socks, so that singletons can always find new matching mates.)

But is a new mindset creeping into my entitled, spoiled, consumerist brain? I find myself stopping to think before using something up or throwing something away — will that be easy to replace, with all the stores closed and Amazon deliveries running late? Or alternatively, is that thing even needed? I’ve worn nothing but jeans and thrift-store tops for nearly two months now, some of them in the final stages of viability. Two favorites are fraying at the cuffs and collar. In the past, I’d permit myself a foray to our excellent local thrift store to replace them. But even if that were possible now, it doesn’t seem necessary; my remaining wardrobe is ample for waiting out a pandemic at home.

I only get antsy when I find empty shelves at the grocery store, for those items are truly essential. We’re assured there are no real shortages, just supply-chain disruptions, panic buying and delayed restocking. But having never seen a grocery store picked clean before (except when a blizzard is forecast, and then only briefly), I admit this causes me to panic a little — though I try not to contribute to the problem by over-buying and hoarding.

So, what I am doing, increasingly consciously, is examining my landscape and deciding what is truly necessary and of worth, in these conditions in particular, but also in the post-pandemic future. There are deeper layers to explore; I am only scratching the surface with my tiny exercise in self-awareness, darning a sock.

During the last couple of days, I’ve finally gotten around to doing some of the sorts of things I thought I would do during this ‘stay at home’ period. When I first quit going to the city to work, I took on a few projects, such as refinishing the dining room table and spring-cleaning the garden, because the opportunity seemed so unusual and precious, and I figured it would be short-lived. But as the crisis mounted, I lost my appetite for household projects; I’ve even lost my taste for reading (usually a favorite form of entertainment), unless it’s about corona virus. So, like many folks, I bet, I’ve gotten a lot less done than I would have expected.

But I’ve taken a few emotional hits lately and my usual response to such events is to get busy. So in the past few days, I’ve cleaned and starched a set of placemats crocheted by my grandmother (an exacting one-by-one job which I’ve put off for about three decades), scraped an old security-firm sticker from a window (another task postponed for years, when I realized how cemented it seemed to be; indeed, the process consumed about an hour!), and sorted a messy under-sink cache of ziplocks, food wraps and the new, ecologically-sound waxed-fabric food coverings. These homely pastimes are the sort of thing that would have once inspired great satisfaction — I finally got to that, hooray! I’m free! Now it won’t be hanging over my head for another decade.

But that’s no longer the case. I mean, I’m glad I’ve accomplished these things, but under the circumstances, who can get even mildly excited about such things? The mere fact that I have such things to do underscores my privilege — I have a home to hunker down in, and possessions to Marie-Kondo; I don’t have to spend my nights in a homeless shelter petrie dish. I can work from my spare bedroom; I don’t have to don protective gear and care for the sick or pick up trash or stock grocery shelves. I don’t even have any stricken loved ones to worry about and grieve for. The sufferings of this plague are very unequally distributed.

There’s lots of hunkering-down advice out there, and most of it is offensively romanticized. Considering the cataclysm that Covid-19 represents for so many people (many of them already exploited, disadvantaged and vulnerable), it’s no wonder I take so little satisfaction in my refinished table and starched placemats.

The other morning in the park, I happened upon a parent mourning dove feeding a pair of fluffy fledglings with the ‘crop milk’ secreted by several species of birds (mainly pigeons and flamingos — both sexes), which they regurgitate into the mouths of their young. I was puzzled to see this happening in April, when I’d have thought mourning doves would have barely courted and paired, so can’t explain why this one had young still to feed. (Maybe the youngsters came home because of the corona virus?)

Because the behavior was interesting, I stood a long while observing the birds through my binoculars. I have probably seen mourning doves nearly every day of my life, and would have told you I knew exactly what this bird looked like — but I doubt I’d ever looked at one through binoculars.  The bird was also at eye level, not on the ground at my feet as usual, so I had a different viewpoint.  What a revelation!

Did you know that mourning doves have azure-blue rings around their eyes? They are quite spectacular! Did you know they have a dusting of iridescent yellow on their necks? Have you ever noticed the pretty rosy-buffy color of their underparts? Probably not, as you’re usually looking down on them. How about the dainty spots which adorn their backs and wings? All of these characteristics had completed escaped me, in a bird I assumed that I knew well.

As I stood there taking all this in, I even began to question if this was a mourning dove at all, or perhaps some special, unfamiliar sort of pigeon. I had to come home and open the guidebook and the Cornell bird site to be positive that I had actually been looking at a ubiquitous, utterly familiar mourning dove.

I suppose this is what happens when we stop and consider long and thoughtfully about something which we assume that we know — we discover that we don’t at all. There’s a lesson here for our present Covid-19 episode, when our experiences are so limited. Maybe there are only mourning doves to look at, but if you really look at them, you’ll find yourself surprised by their unexpected beauty.

Going on bird walks is one of my favorite spring hobbies. Central Park in New York City is a surprisingly great birding location during migration, and I also have several fruitful environments close to my home, including a large Frederick Law Olmstead park in my suburban town. But despite my interest, I’ve never been a very good birder — I’m dependent on better eyes than mine to find the birds, better ears to hear their songs, and more knowledgeable folks to identify them by their field marks, behavior, habitat, etc. But this year I’m on my own! I’m also adjusting to a different pace of birding — confined to the local park and my own backyard, I encounter fewer birds, so each one seems even more valuable and interesting. Any competent birders who are reading this should stop now, as my ignorance and naivete are likely to annoy you!

I have never developed the discernment necessary to appreciate the myriad so-called LBJs (little brown jobs), but early in migration, when there’s not a lot to see, I find that even I can enjoy them. Until last week, for instance, I had always overlooked song sparrows — but what a shame, for they are delightful! Upon close examination, you see they’re not just streaky brown birds but very pretty little creatures, with stripey breasts and russet-colored backs and wings. And what endearing behaviors — I often caught them hopping daintily along the canal which flows through the park, or perched conspicuously on bare branch proudly singing their little hearts out.

Even common grackles can command your attention when there’s little else going on. Although they annoy me at my feeders, aggressively shouldering aside more ‘desirable’ birds, I do enjoy the iridescent plumage on their heads.  But I’d never noticed how their tails appear to be oriented vertically in flight, almost like a dorsal fin. I’ve now also observed their clear preference for the park’s darkest, thickest evergreens, from which issue their constant harsh, noisy cries. I also enjoyed watching one taking an exuberant bath in the canal on a very cold morning. What fortitude!

I was surprised to observe something new about the ubiquitous mourning dove. Have you ever noticed how they sit as still as stones in trees? They often choose trees with gray bark to match their plumage, so they are perfectly camouflaged! Study the trees with a careful eye, and suddenly a docile, motionless bird might leap into focus, almost with a shock, as you have been unaware of the presence of a living creature. These slow-flying birds must be favorite prey of raptors, so have learned how to stay hidden.

I’ve also enjoyed watching the behaviors of paired birds, which I might not have noticed in the past. Cardinal couples check in with each other constantly, trading little ‘chip’ calls, as if conversing. Song sparrows forage in obvious pairs, remaining close to one another as they move along the stream bank. I also enjoy watching a pair of mallards sailing lazily along side by side, knowing that they’ll soon be trailed by a flotilla of ducklings. And how do the paired mourning doves execute their perfectly synchronized swerves and veers over my head?

Maybe my identifications skills will improve too, now that I’m on my own. Birding with a knowledgeable guide, I had never committed to memory the difference between a golden-crowned kinglet (yellow and black stripes on head) and a ruby-crowned one (no stripes); nor the russet cap which distinguishes the palm from the pine warbler. My ancient brain is no longer very fertile soil for information like this to germinate, but maybe just a bit will take root!

Meanwhile I’m grateful for a hobby which is still accessible when nearly everything else is shuttered. Before mid-March, if you got a little bored or antsy, you could go shopping or have a meal out, or  meet friends for a meal. Now none of those amusements are available, so I turn gratefully to the birds.

When the NY/NJ lock-down went into effect back in mid-March, I began an evening ritual inspired by the videos I’d seen of home-bound Italians singing together from their windows and balconies. I have long loved the Woody Guthrie song THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND, and decided to make it my nightly anthem. So every evening at about 7:30PM, I go out with my Bluetooth speaker and play THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND a couple of times, walking up and down my suburban block.

What a pointless gesture, right? Who even notices, much less cares? A couple of neighbors have mentioned that they hear my music in the evenings, and occasionally a dog-walker gives me a fist-pump as s/he passes by, but what is really the point?

I suppose it’s mostly for ME. I never tire of this wholesomely subversive song, which always gives me hope in the dark hours of our public life. I also hope that while my neighbors may not tune in consciously, they are hearing and responding on a subatomic level. When all this is over, Woody’s lyrics may touch them in a newly profound way. They may not even know why — though I fantasize that perhaps a vague memory will surface, associating this song with the coronavirus lock-down, and maybe with a new hope that was born, as hopes often are, during dark days.

I don’t understand patriotism — how can you take pride in a mere accident of fate? — so I am not celebrating my country with my nightly broadcast. If anything, I’m shaming it, just as Woody was, demanding that it become the ideal aspired to by its founders. So although I’m not patriotic, Woody’s plain, rugged Anglo-Saxon words still thrill me — his roaming and rambling, his waving wheat fields, rolling dust clouds and chanting voices.  Hear these words and you are no longer alone in your house with your nervous little family. Rather, you’re at the side of an optimistic, questing troubadour.  I may go on playing THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND every evening for the rest of my life!