Home

It’s too early to heat the oven, and too late to begin cutting the lawn, vacuuming the downstairs, or putting in the screens.

I fall into the twisted adirondack on our back deck. The feeder dangles from a thin black pole, leaning under the weight of the seed I just poured. It swings side to side with the breeze, clicking to keep time.

A gray squirrel approaches, leaping left to right as though navigating rocks across a rushing stream. Beneath the feeder, she sits and sorts seeds with discerning paws.

Next, the Blue Jays arrive. Big and fiercely colored, they swoop, sit, and rain seeds to the ground. A cardinal flutters to the feeding perch. Red-winged blackbirds fly low and fast, land, spray seeds, and leave.

A chipmunk scurries from the woodpile to begin collecting the fallen cache, while two Robins hop from the woods, their beaks pecking at the soft ground.

A Carolina Wren steps front and center to the end of a leafless branch. He nods to me, turns to the woods, and offers his three-syllable pitch. The trees fill with tuning. One by one, they join: metallic chirps, bold jeers, fluted whistles, conk-la-vees, chatters, trillings, and the whinnying call of a downy Woodpecker.

The trees rustle and the tuning quiets. A woodpecker knocks, introducing the first piece, a dynamic interplay of joining opposites: bright with dull, shrill with soft, rasping with smooth, and high with low. The music projects from an acoustic shell of scrub pines, cedars, and full-grown oaks with soft open leaves.

The tension of the day slackens. I lean back and close my eyes, letting the music rise beneath me until I am adrift, floating over deep stillness. The air settles with the weight of salt and a hint of decay from the falling tide.

“Well.” I think to myself, “I wonder how many miles I will drift? I wonder if I am moving closer or farther away, to or from what - I cannot be certain.” I feel myself dozing off at the edge of dreaming.

Thump!

My eyes open.

Clatter.

Scratch.

Slide.

I sit up.

Inside, our dog scrambles from the couch to the side door. She sits, nose craned and tail sweeping as though she might burst from anticipation.

Crunch.

Grind.

Pop!

I turn my head at the sound of our graveled road.

Crunch. Grind. Pop!

Crunch. Grind. Grind.

Pop! Pop! Grind.

Crunch. Pop!

“It sounds like hers,” I think to myself.

“Mom’s home!” The words spill onto the deck from an open window. Feet bounce down stairs. The radio in the kitchen clicks off.

I push up from my chair. The sky has dissolved from blue to black. The stars are on their way. The feeder has gone dark.

Time to heat the oven and work the dough. Fridays are pizza night. Everyone is home.