This afternoon, the sky was waiting for snow. Now I finally hear ice plinks begin as I start to write at 2 this morning. I hear that quiet sound I like, of slow cars moving on the wet road. I am not trying to be poetic, just simply writing of my surroundings as I have woken and found myself here - unchanged by an overnight, Kafaesk, metamorphosis; not mesmerized away by a novel; still here in Manhattan, not having suddenly remembered that, Oh, yeah, I flew in to Tokyo last night; and not still dreaming another landscape. But if I may wax just once, Here I, transported by the magic carpet to nowhere else, am. (Ah, the very definition of meditation - though I am currently bumbling through the apartment in the beta state of workaday thinking.)This afternoon, (back to the point of this entry), I needed to get out of the house a bit and so headed across Central Park toward the Met Museum. I always (always, near to the point of an Adrian Monk obsession) take a certain route when I get to an edge of the Jackie O. Reservoir. I take the jogging path along side the water going toward the museum and come back home by way of the Great Lawn and the pinetum.
This afternoon, I had a feeling I wanted to leave for the museum the other way, by the Great Lawn. It wasn't a strong feeling, I just wanted to take the road "usually" not taken. It was as simple as when you want a glass of water and then you notice yourself automatically getting one. But there must have been some resistance because I found myself needing to say out loud, I want to go the other way today. And so, I went.
There was a man with a large telescope in the pinetum. It was pointing to the sky, and I guessed he was bird watching but the angle looked just too high for the top of the fir trees in the fore. I wondered if he was looking at something in the sky? I had to ask, he said he was looking at an owl. We got to talking about whether there were actually 60 million birdwatchers in the country as I had read just yesterday and he took me a few steps to the other side of the copse where his wife was photographing and the man positioned his tripoded telescope for me to see one of the two long-eared owls treed there.
This afternoon was the first time I saw an owl in the wild even though I grew up not in Manhattan, but wandering field and wood, even taking foxes, rabbits, a turtle and a skunk as pets.
Seeing my first feral owl let me know that I had been connecting to the Life Force, to the greater world. Certainly, we all want these acknowledgments that our gut feelings are spot on, we want these magic owls. But even more is the connection we tangibly have when we stop and ask, How do I feel inside.
Please ask now. Reading this was just a prelude. Your feelings don't have to be profound, they might be just quietly hooting to you, Relax or Get moving. Then go out and try to keep connected as you move about you life. If later you happen to want to buy a magazine you never bought before or take a different route on your way home from grocery shopping? Why not?
And let me know what happens, if you will... TheAncientSounds@Gmail.com.
Hoot, hoot.
From my kitchen window, the road now and the car tops are white, and the plinking of icy snow keeps me company as my family sleeps.
photo by Dave Schreier on flickr.
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