On Birds and Italian Ice

Today was the first day of spring and I made it a point to visit my garden before I headed to Oakland to meet my roommate for our annual celebration of Free Rita’s Day.  The air still made me shiver while a paced the mulch and grass and the plants still look cold and tired, but the freshness of the wet dirt seems hopeful.  But for the first time since I started this blog absolutely no snow could be found in or near my garden.  Even earlier in this winter, when unusually warm days left me without the need of my winter jacket, clusters of snow clung to the cool shaded corners of the garden.

Even so,  I could tell something was off today from the moment I descended the stairs to the nestled garden.  Not until I heard the solitary crow’s caw did I realize the birds were missing.  Their sweet, if not cacophonous, chirps called to me for the past two days while I sat in front of a computer at work.  They even called to me from my apartment window in the fading night, their conversations so loud it felt as though they shared the room with me.  Just this morning, on my walk to work, robin redbreasts and daring squirrels flecked the sloped green of the chapel’s hill.

Yet by the time I reached the garden early this evening it seemed they all had vanished.  Even the three crows—only one of which bothered to speak that individual caw—hopped from tree to tree as they, too, deserted me. 

It would surprise me if my sudden appearance in the garden had caused the dismissal of the birds—and squirrels for that matter.  I doubted the tired branches hosted the birdy party of the year until my clomping steps scared them all away.  The animals on this campus are anything but scared.  In fact, I sometimes think they might be a little too daring in their proximity to humans.  Just this past December, a squirrel chewed through a screen in the middle of the night and broke in to a friend’s apartment to dine on an unopened bag of rice cakes.  Though it left long before she woke the next morning, it came back later that day to wait longingly at the now closed window.

 And the birds?  Those brazen chickadees?  Why they’d sooner yell at you than move out of your path.  Not that they don’t have a right to be there.  Chickadees are actual a favorite of mine.  I hear they can become comfortable enough around a particular human to eat out of his or her hand, though my mother and I were never quite able to test this theory out in her Disney movie of a backyard.

But this tangent just adds to my argument: my being in the garden should not have been cause for the birds to run—well I guess technically fly—away. 

The garden felt eerie on this first day of spring.  It should have been cheerful and exciting without the insulation of the quiet snow.

I left the garden, took the long way around campus to catch a bus on 5^th and wait in line for my free Rita’s.  And do you know what happened when I reached the top step out of my garden?  The birds came back.  Their voices sounded soft and distant, especially compared to the chorus in the air the past two days.  But nonetheless their voices returned and travel as far as they could.

  So maybe the birds aren’t angry with me invading their garden.  Maybe they’re mad at the garden.  Or maybe they know the date of the calendar means nothing; that there is the possibility of snow this coming weekend and we are doomed to this winter/spring limbo for a while longer. 

Silly humans they think, retreating again from the weather, eating your Italian ice in the cold.  Pretending it’s spring doesn’t make it spring.

And they might be right.  But that doesn’t mean I enjoyed my mango ice any less.

My Place at Home

Going home for spring break means three things—warm peach kugel, a seventy-five pound torpedo of a yellow lab, and the reservoir.  

As much as I enjoy my weekly time in my garden, each time I visit I can’t help longing for my natural place in my home town: The Oak Ridge Reservoir.  You see, I did not always enjoy my time outdoors as much as I do now, and the reservoir is where it all began.  Sure, I participated in Girl Scout as a child; I went on all the camping trips and made birdfeeders out of pinecones and peanut butter.  But the reservoir is different, it is the nature hidden in my own neighborhood that evaded my interest as a child.  There is nothing all that special in its building blocks.  It has all the typical animals found roaming the yards of my small hometown in northwest New Jersey—the deer that flee at the smallest crack of a branch, curious frogs that leave everything covered in slime, and probably some bears that are as skilled at staying away from me as I am from them.  Yet every time I swung over the metal barrier only successful in keeping large vehicles out, I was presented with a quiet, new are to explore. 

Even though any of its many entrances are no more than a fifteen minute walk from my house, I was not introduced to the reservoir until a few months before my 18^th birthday.  On an unusually warm day in late March my boyfriend, Matt, parked as close to the metal barrier as he could maneuver his old Saturn and introduced me to his childhood playground.  This still snow covered trail, he explained, was a surprise intended to cheer me up after a stressful week at school. 

Before this point, I did not hike.  The boots I wore that day, purchased in seventh grade for the class camping trip to Stokes Forrest, still needed to be broken in.  For the next week my mother exclaimed continual surprise that I had trekked through mud and snow for the better part of an afternoon.  She was even more surprised when I began hiking on a semi-regular basis, most commonly along the trails of the reservoir.

My place at home looks very similar to the place I left behind at school over spring break.  Like the garden, a good portion of the reservoir remains untraveled, its ice-particle snow reaching near the bottom of my knees.  Like the garden, most of the trees and plants lay dormant.  But, if you look hard enough, you can still see some signs of green.  Some signs that most everything will soon return with color and warmth.  

As Matt led my roommate and me around the reservoir this past week, he recounted for her a number of tales from his childhood in these woods; tales very similar to those I heard each time he led me through the trails.  His own personal folklore, Matt shaped each tale in time for a number of land maker.  And along the way we came across history of other travelers, a history we can only hypothesize about.   

Some more self-explanatory….

….than others

This tangle of trails intercepting a basin of water is so seeped in folklore.  The tales I learned from Matt along with stories I may never have the opportunity to learn.  But the tales I learned are different from those my roommate heard and different still from those you might be told should you ever come across my reservoir.  And that’s what so great about folktales, the oral tradition.  The same story can be told countless ways based on when we tell it, who we are with, how long it’s been since the tale originated. 

And that’s what The Oak Ridge Reservoir is to me: the place where I first became aware of the countless folktales to be discovered and created in the natural world.

Travel Advisory

Yesterday, Savannah was 70 degrees, in the sun at least.  And on the concrete steps of Ellis Square I drank my peach sangria—in a to go cup of course—and watched children, adults, and dogs run through the syncopated fountain show.  Yesterday, my cheeks became red and my shoulders looked a little less ghostly.  Large groups of pub-crawlers in varying green t-shirts took their time solving clues on what can only be described as a St. Patrick’s Day scavenger hunt through pubs across downtown.  Nobody seemed concerned the event was taking place about two weeks early.  They sauntered around sporting giant green hats and ties, orange-feathered boas, and special green plastic mugs.  A live band played near the edge of the City Market at the perfect volume to not turn a conversation into a yelling match.  Yesterday I skipped right over spring and soaked up the summer atmosphere. 

Even around 7am this morning the cool air was crisp and fresh.  I did not need to huddle inside the hotel lobby and make a mad dash for the shuttle once it arrived, but rather chose to wait outside and enjoy my last moments with the remnants of warm air.

Two plane rides later I faced a very different cold air.  The kind that seizes your lungs and makes your nose run.  Snow saturated my shoes and my chest stung as my shallow breathing struggled to keep up with my long strides.  The dry air scratched at my clogged sinuses and deepened the cold I already had brewing.  Yesterday, all I wanted was my sunglasses and some ice cream.  And today?  Well today all I want is large amounts of tea brought to me while I disappear into a mound of blankets.  The feeling of skin-baking warmth is quickly becoming a distant memory. 

While I have been known look towards future season with desire, I can still appreciate each season its proper time.  I don’t hate snow, in fact I like it for the most part—the giant clumps of flakes catching in my lashes though I try to catch them with my tongue, the quiet glow of the streets at night, and of course sledding.  But enough is enough.  When I left Pittsburgh Wednesday for the Sigma Tau Delta international convention, I didn’t even really need my winter jacket.  I grabbed the long plaid pea coat out of habit rather than necessity.  And my scarf was brought along as more of a travel pillow than a means of staying warm. 

I am not mad at the snow or the fact that it’s cold in the middle of winter.  I’m angry at the inconsistency.  This rollercoaster of erratic temperatures is making me dizzy, and apparently clogging my sinuses.  But evidently this is to become the norm of future winters—dressing in two sweaters, wool socks, scarfs gloves and jacket one day just to contemplate if enough snow has melted for it to be acceptable to wear flip-flops the next.  

The weather is a dirty tease.  She gives glimpses of spring—a field of grass here a patch of sun there—just to cover it all up with pounds of snow.  And tops it all off with piercing wind for good measure.  Weather is a sadistic creature. 

But maybe I’m being dramatic, maybe I’m just jealous of Savannah’s day in the mid 50’s or when I learned on my brief layover Charlotte was in the high 60’s.  Maybe if I give the outdoors a bit longer of a chance I would re-acclimate to the screeching winds and the slush-covered boots.

Maybe.

But I don’t think I’ll abandon my Earl Grey and oversized comforter to test that theory out.