Beneath the crust lies a kernel. A kernel formed of decisions made and those deferred. Crack it open and free the seed inside to float away. Follow it. Down a deer trail. Under a rock. Into the reeds. Up in the air, over the ridge. Pay attention. Ignore the ghostly hands pulling at your collar, suggestive in manner, dragging you, enticing you toward a warm spot to curl up and stop. It’s always the decisions. Counseling for or against. Talking, hashing it out, pacing in deranged circles. Stop the pacing. Wrangle your thoughts and subdue them. Step back. Breathe. There is a lightness in us that we can reach. Tap it like a sugar maple and let it flow, sweet and pure. Drink it in and never stop. What will matter in the end is how we spent our days; these moments won’t return.
Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks!
I received an early phone call this morning alerting me to the presence of rare ducks at a local city park. I hopped on the bike not long after and pedaled on down there to get my lifer Black-bellied Whistling-Duck, not just one but five! I even heard them whistle, which was pretty damn cool. Crappy documentation photos digiscoped with the point-and-shoot through my bins can be found here. I ended up hanging around there for a few hours due to the rolling roster of birders that came through, some of whom I knew and others whom I was putting faces to names for the first time. Unfortunately I also ended up with the worst sunburn I’ve had in a while. But it was worth it!
Posted by sean on June 4, 2011
https://sd-stewart.com/2011/06/04/black-bellied-whistling-ducks/
hot ugly times are a’comin’
Ah, summer in the city, my least favorite time of year here. Yesterday I got my first “Hey buddy, lemme borrow your bike!” [Does anyone actually fall for that?] Then this morning while watering the garden I received my first mosquito bite, courtesy of the invasive Asian Tiger Mosquito, the bane of my summer existence. Soon I will not be able to enter the yard without being swarmed and bitten to my near death. Trickling in on the email lines are the initial reports of random acts of violence committed by hordes of savage bored youth. Calm evenings on the deck are shattered by the incessant hovering and circling of the city’s police chopper. I try to block it all out and dream of living in a tree fort in the middle of an expansive tract of old growth forest. I fail regularly. But sometimes I succeed.
Posted by sean on May 25, 2011
https://sd-stewart.com/2011/05/25/hot-ugly-times-are-acomin/
reverse weekend
This week I’m experimenting with the old “reverse weekend” concept. This is when you only work two days and take the rest of the days off, instead of vice versa. In my case, I’m currently finishing up a four-day weekend, gritting my teeth in anticipation of the next two days of work, before I sail off into a five-day weekend. It’s pretty exciting stuff. Mostly it just makes me realize that I’d be perfectly happy never going to work.
In other news, I came home from birding today to find a dead bird in my living room. WTF?? It was a Chimney Swift and it was lying right on the mat in front of the door. I have no idea how this bird got in the house, given that our fireplace is sealed shut with brick. Of course, it’s not unheard of for chimney swifts to pop down a chimney and end up in someone’s house. I mean, they LIVE in chimneys, or rather they build their nests there. Most everything else they do on the wing. But unless this one can pass through brick, I am mystified as to its presence in the house. Given that it’s highly unlikely that the bird came in the house on its own, I am forced to pin the blame on our neighbors’ cat, a known bird killer, and frequenter of our front porch. He has also been known to shove his paw through our mail slot, and so it would not be that great a leap to consider the theory that he shoved this bird through the mail slot. I mean, he does like us quite a bit, and spends at least as much time in our yard as in our neighbors’ yard. So perhaps he just wanted to give us a thank you gift. If it wasn’t so horrific it would be sweet. It’s times like this when you really wish your pets could talk. I am sure that Fiznit would have a lot to say about this dead bird. But she refused to comment.
Anyway, I have a local connection who traffics in dead birds, so I’m donating it to the Smithsonian.
Posted by sean on May 24, 2011
https://sd-stewart.com/2011/05/24/reverse-weekend/
a birdy morning
I came downstairs this morning to hear a Yellow Warbler singing from a tree across the alley. Over the next hour, I heard and saw the Yellow, one or two Blackpoll Warblers, and a couple of Cedar Waxwings! It was like a tiny migrant fall-out in the alley! Living in an urban rowhouse neighborhood, we don’t get too many birds in the yard. I do keep a yard list, though, listing each species I either see or hear while I’m in the house or yard. This morning’s birds were all new, bringing my list to 40 species! I think this is a decent yard list total for less than two years, and considering the environment around our house. I hadn’t found a new yard bird in a long time, so to get three in one hour was awesome! I’ve already tallied up most of the likely birds to show up here, so I’m now left hoping for random migrants or winter visitors. I was tempted to blow off work today and hang around to see what else showed up. A couple of times in the past week, I’ve seen and heard warblers in the trees along my bike route to work. Hopefully a few more will wander over to my street before the magic of migration fades into summer.
Posted by sean on May 19, 2011
https://sd-stewart.com/2011/05/19/a-birdy-morning/
the madness of migration
The general public does not realize the significance of the month of May in the life of a North American birder. It is a magical time when all birders would much rather be prowling their favorite haunts searching for spring migrants than toiling away at their desks, or doing anything else for that matter. Every year I say I’m going to take the entire month of May off the following year because unless you go birding every day there is a good chance you are missing something somewhere. And that is a terrible feeling. I have seen some good birds this spring, but I crave more and more and more. Too much time sitting at a desk, and too little time scanning the treetops. The other day I was riding to work and not a quarter mile from my house I heard warblers singing. I literally threw my bike down in the street, pulled my binoculars from my backpack, and began frantically glassing the trees. Warblers are the true jewels of migration. Sure, there are lots of other cool birds that arrive in the area during this time, but I doubt there is a single birder whose pulse does not quicken when she or he hears that familiar buzzing high above them.
Posted by sean on May 16, 2011
https://sd-stewart.com/2011/05/16/the-madness-of-migration/
lost gander
Last night. Goose travels through changing seasons, from falling leaves to falling snow. What does he seek? Brethren pass in and out of our lives. We still move on. Time passes; the seasons mark. Our days the only constant. The banjo plays high and lonesome and the spirit leaves the body. Tune out tipsy voices, the hush of rustling coats. The notes crawl inside you and sound out in the cavern of your heart, the echoes so loud you hear nothing else. You hear nothing else, only what the goose knows, without even knowing it. Restless and lost, with only the seasons to remind us of the coming end, our silhouettes stark against a bone white moon.
Read the full post »
Posted by sean on April 23, 2011
https://sd-stewart.com/2011/04/23/lost-gander/
enveloped, washed over, striated
Your notes, your chords, your melodies, your harmonies, your voices, your guitars, your high lonesome fiddling, your otherwordly banjo picking, your drumbeats, your basslines thudding in my heart, your Jungian tones and rhythms, your making noise out of feelings where words cannot. Your urges you give me, your urges you satisfy, your urges you provide the soundtrack to, your warm sounds to fall into over and over year into year into year, your harsh sounds to resurrect to when there is nothing else, no one else. Your memory-building, your memory-recalling, your memory-erasing. Your differentness, your sameness, your interconnectedness, your powers to unite and reunite, to destroy, to build, to soothe, to agitate, to signal triumph, to remind us of the many things it means to be human. Thank you. Always.
Posted by sean on April 15, 2011
https://sd-stewart.com/2011/04/15/enveloped-washed-over-striated/
shaking the box of time
The gulls circle above, screeching, then settle to the ground. We walk among them and they don’t mind. One peers up at me as I approach, decides I am to be avoided, and grants me a few inches. I think about how all of us deserve the life we are given. The weather turns warm, then cold, then warm, then cold again. I can’t keep up. I prefer warm, but still a five-minute walk in the sunny cold assures me that I am alive. At my desk I had doubts. The harbor glitters. Pairs of mallards snooze on concrete, their bills tucked neatly in their feathered backs. I am as uncertain as the weather. Once every month my work email inbox reaches capacity. I receive an automated message and I must spend time archiving and deleting. What if I didn’t? Meetings are weekly, biweekly, bimonthly. Payment for services rendered occurs twice a month. You earn vacation time because you don’t deserve it. This is the metronome that governs us. Someday none of it will matter. I’m unsure of when but I sure see it bleeding at the seams. I am nervous for all of us.
Posted by sean on March 6, 2011
https://sd-stewart.com/2011/03/06/shaking-the-box-of-time/
hemingway said…
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
I have been bleeding a lot. I very near hemorrhaged and had several transfusions.
Obsessive line editing. Deleting. Tightening. Harvesting ripe words and squeezing until they stain the page.
I’m not sure what this space is to become. I feel a shift has occurred for the moment. For a long time this place was my only outlet for writing. When I was feeling dried up, I’d come here and try to bleed a few drops.
Perhaps this will become more miscellaneous, although it’s always somewhat been that way. Or it may lie fallow until I once again hit a wall. For it’s inevitable that I will. But I’m hoping that won’t be for a while.
Posted by sean on February 22, 2011
https://sd-stewart.com/2011/02/22/hemingway-said/
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