It Happens Every Year

While walking at Great Meadows Refuge in Concord last Sunday, we noticed dozens of Canada geese had taken over a significant swath of the pond.  Tipping bottoms-up to feed and flocking together, it was difficult to distinguish from a distance where one goose began and another ended.  Apparently they hadn’t heard about “social distancing.”

I was thinking about this yesterday as I looked out my kitchen window at our bird feeder, where chickadees, titmice and finches vied for their spot on a perch, flying in and out at close quarters, regardless of whether one was already there, swooping in to shoo it off.  While all this was going on, the squirrels were acting like they’ve just been let out for recess, chasing each other up and down tree trunks, leaping from branch to branch, playing tag.

Whether or not we have noticed, spring is on its way. Sheltered in place as most of us are, it’s natural to feel that the world as we know it has stopped. The reality is that for many, it has. Jobs are on hold, community events postponed, entertainment opportunities disappeared. And always the same question:  “When will ‘normal life’ return?”

It’s easy to forget that there is a world around us where natural rhythms proceed as they always have. If you’re out for a walk or a drive, look up at a tree. Look at the red clusters of not-yet maple leaves on the branches. Peer closely into a vernal pool.  You might see the first sign of skunk cabbage greening in the muddy water, or hear an early spring peeper sounding off. Beside your front door or as you walk by a neighbor’s house, there are tender blades of coming daffodils pushing through. I’ve seen a robin with a beakful of twigs, house-hunting. I’ve heard the woodpecker tap-tap-tapping for bugs on a tree branch. And, although I can’t see them, I know that bear cubs and fox kits are getting ready to poke small noses out of their den, eager to explore a brand new world.

Reminded by daily news bulletins about the crisis, as fear is disseminated and anxiety rises, we humans are prone to plunge into a despair that life as we know it will never be the same. And it may not. But that doesn’t mean that the world will stop spinning.

It will not.  Look to the trees, the animals, the grasses; listen to the cardinal’s spring song and the rooster’s crow for evidence that our planet obeys its own natural calendar.  Soon flowers will bloom, the robin will lay her eggs, streams will flow faster and fuller from the winter’s melt.

Hope is out there.  We just need to stop, look and listen.