The Longest Day

 Eight years ago, on June 21, our son Matt sent an email “The Great Gatsby,”

"Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it?  I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it."

Over the years, Matt occasionally resends the Daisy quotation and I usually realize I’ve missed the day.

But this year was different. On June 20 I searched and found that the summer solstice would arrive at 11:32 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. But which day would be the longest? Turns out three days straddling the solstice are of equal length: June 19th, 20th, and 21st. In Lexington on those days, sunrise occurred at 5:07 a.m. and sunset at 8:25 p.m. 15 hours and 18 minutes of daylight.

So Daisy actually had two or three days to succeed. She gave up too soon.

Here in Lexington, for the past several days, sunlight has streamed through the small octagonal front window every morning, my personal Stonehenge.

On Monday, after noticing the sunshine in the hallway,  I went back to bed and watched the sun traverse our northeast window. I closed my eyes and sunbathed. No sand, no heat, no sticky sunscreen, just pure sunlight on my closed eyelids. Luxurious. Restorative. Nourishing.

The first hug of covid!

 Friday evening Carri, a friend of ours (and my ministering sister for those of you fluent in LDS jargon), hosted a farewell party for a mutual friend. We met in her backyard and ate hot dogs and watermelon.

Carri walked over to greet me and gave me a big hug. It felt good but strange to have physical contact with someone outside my family.

Two days later, I saw Carri at church and told her that I was reminded of the children’s picture book, Polar Express. A young boy takes a mysterious train to the North Pole and meets Santa Claus. He is chosen to receive a gift and requests a silver bell from a reindeer’s harness. Santa smiles and an elf tosses a bell to him. Santa holds it high above his head and declares it “the first gift of Christmas!’

In the churchyard, I raised my hand high in the air and declared, “The first hug of covid!”

I’m finding it psychologically challenging to venture out into the public. Last night Jim and I went to another farewell party, held outdoors at Kimball Farms ice cream stand in Carlisle. We ordered our frozen delights and mingled and talked for over an hour and a half. As dusk fell, we returned to our car. Jim said, “That was nourishing.” Yes, indeed. Worth the anxiety.

The Bees' Knees

 Exactly three years ago I wrote an elbow-appreciation post. I had weeded in short sleeves and developed painful poison-ivy rashes on both inner elbows. For several days I couldn’t bend my arms. I realized I had taken my arm joints for granted for 61 years.

Now I must discuss knees. On Memorial Day I worked creating a raised garden bed with Conor, the teenage boy I’ve hired as a gardener, and Caleb, Jim’s nephew. We worked for over four hours, digging trenches and installing a border of pavers. I was in constant motion, kneeling and standing back up. By the end of the session, my left knee, a problem since high school, could hardly tolerate weight and I limped into the house.

For the next several days I rested, careful not to twist the knee. I took the stairs one step at a time. My mom taught me the drill: down with the bad, up with the good. (This puts all the stress on the healthy knee.) But then I got careless and on Friday I was in worse pain than ever.

Monday was frustrating. I had to go up and down two flights of stairs multiple times with laundry baskets. It was so tedious. But I stayed true to my resolve to care for my knee. Down with the bad, up with the good. The tedium paid off: today I have no pain. I even ventured out for a two-mile walk on the Battle Road in Lincoln.

Speaking of the Battle Road (preserved in the Minuteman National Historical Park in Lexington, Lincoln, and Concord): on April 19th, Patriots' Day, I completed my walking Paul Revere's ride (having walked from Paul Revere's house in Boston to Lexington the Saturday before). That Monday I started at Lexington's Hancock-Clarke House, and followed Mass Ave to the old Battle Road. There's a curving stone wall at Revere's Capture Site, where Revere was nearly shot and the British patrol confiscated his borrowed horse. From there, in the early morning hours of April 19, 1775, Revere walked back to the Lexington Green where the Battle of Lexington was about to erupt. He walked in the pre-dawn; I walked at dusk. I'm grateful for knees.

Bird nests

 A few weeks ago, Jim and I were having a ‘homework party,’ where we share his office together, each working on their own projects. I saw a flash of orange and brown outside and realized that a robin had just flown to the second-story window ledge. I had seen a nest a few days earlier, from the driveway, but I couldn’t see inside.

When the mother bird flew away, we went to the window and saw four ‘robin’s-egg-blue’ eggs nestled in the grass and twig nest. It brought back sweet childhood memories of my dad lifting me up with his strong arms so I could peer into a nest and marvel at the tiny blue eggs.

Jim was concerned we would frighten the mother, so he put a packing box on the floor and later closed the blinds. We worried that she would abandon the nest, but next day I saw her again. Some days later Jim peeked around the blinds and found an empty nest. We can only guess that something attacked the nest.

A few days later I was looking out my bedroom window at the three-story evergreen tree next to the house. I saw a blue jay nesting. I was shocked: I’d never seen a blue jay’s nest. It gave me a warm feeling about blue jays.

I haven’t always had a warm feeling about them. I’ve always enjoyed their bright-blue plumage. But I had an encounter, probably 25 years ago or more, that left a bitter taste in my mouth.

A friend of ours from church had ‘rescued’ a nest of  three baby sparrows which had dropped out of a tree in her yard. She didn’t have a safe place to put it, so she asked me to foster the birds. I put them in our enclosed front porch and we watched them. As they grew feathers I knew it was time to let them fly. I took the nest out to our yard and watched. One of the fledglings jumped out of the nest and soared away. A second followed suit. But one sat on the ground.

“Go on!” I urged, to no avail. It sat in the driveway, inert.

Then a blue jay swooped down and caught the tiny baby. Shocked, I shouted and shooed it away, but the damage was done: the little sparrow lay dead on the asphalt.

Determined not to reward the jay for its cold-blooded greed, I got a garden spade and dug a hole near a tree where grass doesn’t grow.  I cried bitterly as I dug the grave and gently lowered the bird down. The blue jay had been so cruel, so heartless.

But here, outside my bedroom window, I saw a blue jay lavishing maternal care on her three babies. The day that it rained all day I saw her on the nest, keeping the nestlings dry.

Watching the babies grow has been delightful. A few days ago I looked out and saw a flash of wing, with the distinctive white and black markings on grey instead of blue. The baby nearest my window was stretching halfway out of the nest and spreading its grey and white wings. His nestmate followed suit. I wondered if they would fly away, but it was just a test run. They soon settled back into the nest.

Yesterday morning the heads and chests were well above the top of the nest. They were growing fast. I could see that soon flight will be imperative: they wouldn’t fit in the nest. Just two days ago only their heads were visible. They sat perfectly still, each looking out in a different direction.

This morning the nest was empty. I checked during the day, but they are gone.

Having a tiny blue jay family outside my bedroom window heals my heart of bitterness. It is part of nature, of the environment we cherish, to have predators and prey. If every songbird baby survived, the earth would soon be filled to overflowing and the food supply would run out. Birds by the thousands would die of starvation. Nature has built in restraints: food for the sparrow, blue jay, hawk, owl, and eagle.