The Family Plan

A week ago, my BFF Ruthie drove up from Miami. On Friday, I finished up my first-half-summer class and we drove in the afternoon with other friends towards Chattanooga. Purpose: to celebrate the upcoming 70th birthday of our friend Nancy Hayya Burton. Nancy & Jim were the people who got me through my father’s death, who supported me more like brother and sister than my own brother (I’ve learned it’s often easier to find that support with folks who have no history with you!). So going to celebrate a birthday and have a general family reunion was a thing I really looked forward to.

Big Family Photo June 2009

And, it was just as wonderful as I thought it would be. Many were camping at the Chattanooga Flight park, so we spent time there, watching the hang-gliders, watching Hayya take her first hang-glide in celebration of being (almost) 70, watching Jim take his first trip, watching Christina’s kids fly. Singing, dancing, chanting, drumming, swimming, and sweating. Great weekend! Of course, there was great food, lots of barbecue, birding, and general nature appreciation. Very great weekend.

We even planned some future trips along the way: another “family reunion;” a trek across the entirety of Lookout Mountain for a writing project (Yes, there’s always writing! We’re always thinking about writing and writing projects, the next book, or the next podcast, or the next illustrated book. After all, I live with a writer!); Thanksgiving in Florida with the Vilberg clan.

And in the quiet moments, I thought about my own journeys, past, present, future. Thinking about the things that brought me to that moment, those friends, those memories, and wondering about the future. About being on the cusp of change, about living there and what it says about me that I like that edge. About the intense gratitude I feel for my family, whether blood kin, marriage kin, or family of choice. I’ve made such good choices (generally speaking — there were a few duds!) in who I’m related to and am so blessed with family.

So, yes, I’m high on the family plan. And I’m just trying to hold onto that loving feeling!

May . . . I pass

Whether I planned it or not….well, I guess I didn’t plan NOT TO . . . I ended up writing only this entry during the entire month of May.  So, what happened?  I have no idea.  Yesterday, we were getting back from our DIAL trip, tallying the total count of bird species seen, entering the data into eBird, and then it was today!

I guess a few other things did happen:

• I started teaching again — a mini-session course in Interdisciplinary Studies;
• We had Mother’s Day with Faye — another wonderful year!
• We bought a grill and have used it!
• We planted a container garden and got plants started for our beds;
• We honored the second anniversary of Ron’s dad’s passing;
• We had a great long weekend and thanked our friend John for his service to our country with a great Mexican lunch!
• I wrote and got some grants;
• Ron wrote and published some columns and did some talks;
• Three friends decided to retire from the university;
• One friend (and doctoral student) got a job;
• Friends celebrated birthdays, anniversaries, graduations; one is planning an upcoming wedding;
• and then, miscellaneous life.

That’s right.  Life happened.  And it’s been great.  Harried, frantic sometimes, but wonderful.  At times I long for more silence, more solitude.  Then I wish for more parties, more gathering of friends, more, more, more.  It’s clear I don’t know what I want….or perhaps it’s that I want everything!

June is coming in a huff!  I’ll be back online.  And life will just keep rolling along!  See you then!

April

April is hell month for us. It used to be a great month, a time spent gardening and getting our yard in shape for the long, hot summer ahead. A slow time, with cool breezes, warm showers, and time. At least that’s how I remember Aprils in my past.

Now, April is spring migration, a birder’s busiest and most frantic time: it’s the time when, if you want to see migrants passing through, you run hither, finding various bird magnets and staking out a space with binocs held to eyes. If they’re not in Dauphin Island, surely they’re in Gulfport. If the weather is bad at 10 p.m., we need to leave home at 3 to get to the shore woods by dawn….birds will surely be holding over there and more flying in from the south.

Whew!

Well, The Writer is gone off doing just that…spinning around, looking for the migrants as they make their way north.

I? Well, I’m sitting still this week: going to work, attending a baby shower, taking care of house and pets, bills, and life detritis. Exciting as seeing Painted buntings, which generally send the least avid birder into paroxyms of delight? Hardly. But I like it. Still and slow are just fine by me.

Wanderings

With Spring Break thrust upon us unexpectedly and delightfully, The Writer and I had to make a quick decision as to whether to spend the time traveling or staying home and the “To Do” list — yes, the “honey, do” list works both ways!

We chose Option 1 and hit the road with only a very sketchy plan. The Writer wanted to search for the Golden Cheeked Warbler in central Texas and I wanted to go see exactly what my guardian Angels protected me from in Silver City, NM. With those two goals in mind, we set off.

Ten days later, we’re home: warbler found in Balcones Canyonlands NWF, Silver City reprise playing softly on a waning breeze. Another life bird on the list and another tally mark for the Guardian Angels. While I found Silver City a wonderful place to visit, I think it is too isolated for me to live in comfortably. It is small and I liked that, but I also like being near bigger cities and towns. 50 miles from the nearest interstate…sounds wonderful but the reality, I think, is a little different. Anyway, I am over the Silver City fantasy and ready for a new one!

Two goals, two achievements, two very grateful people – home. Home to the dogs and the bird and our lovely old house and the azaleas & dogwood blooming. Home. Happy. Fulfilled. Spring Break. Everything it should be.

Back to the Lagoons…the Sewage lagoons…Yes, you heard it right!

So, now not only are we visiting the local sewage lagoons regularly for Audubon field trips (with adults) but now we are also taking kids there — in groups — to bird. Yesterday, we took a group of Boy Scouts working on their birding badges, along with their scout masters and their birding guru, Will Selman (see USM Biology Department GA list). It was cold and windy and birdy as heck, given the bad conditions. We didn’t see the large brownbirds we went for but we saw lots of raptors, lots of yellow-rumped warblers, and lots of coots. The kids added several birds to their list (Great Blue Heron; Eastern Bluebird; Red-tailed Hawk; Eastern Phoebe; Yellow-rumped Warblers; Coots; Ruddy Ducks; Purple Martins; and Mallards). Not a bad way to spend even a cold, blustery winter day in the ‘burg.

Venturing into a new world — Ouch!

So, for my birthday, I order a FLIP (NO, not because The Writer forgot — again; he did NOT forget this time — just take a look at the lovely trinket hanging around me neck!).  Anyway, I thought it would be fun to do some family videos, to record Faye making cornbread dressing, for example. It came in time for the big day and I happily played with videoing the dogs, videoing our friends here from out of town for my Big Day, even taking it to film a reading a friend was having. Then, to the computer to download, upload and generally have some more fun.

Nope.

Wouldn’t connect, wouldn’t read, wouldn’t disconnect (yes, that’s the irony…my computer couldn’t see it, but it could see my computer! Go figure!), wouldn’t play with me at all!

Technical support email: “What’s your problem?” (not on their list of problems, so I typed in a long, detailed message about all the things I tried, problem-solved, etc. Hours go by….

“Do you see an orange icon on your WIN desktop?” (FLIP “support” tech)

Me: I told them in the first message that I had a MAC; I told them there was nothing to indicate that the computer recognized the FLIP. What would that mean to YOU?!

“Oh, you have a Mac!” (FLIP “support tech”). More hours pass….next day.

and so forth and so on. I still have a FLIP that won’t let me download the 45 min or so of video I have on it. I still don’t know what I’m supposed to do about returning, calling someone else, etc.

Technical support… It’s an oxymoron I could live without. Shoddy workmanship, too. Someday….you MIGHT see a video link posted on my blog…but not today. Thanks, FLIP!

Busy, busy for the Writer (and me!)

Living with a working writer….well, that means helping coordinating his speaking schedule with the rest of our lives: switching cars, scheduling equipment rental-pickup-dropoff, making sure clothes are washed, bags packed, cars filled with gas, tires aired up, etc.  Then, while gone and left on home duty alone, there’s childcare (in our case, pet care), family obligations, my own work/job and the volunteer activities that keep on and on and on…it’s a mountain!

So, how’s this different from any other professional person?  Not really so much different except that it seems to come in flurries rather than being a constant.  The Writer may not have a speaking engagement at all one month, followed by three in one week, all punctuated by insanity in the house…and my life, too.

Coping?  Mostly I just ignore it all.  If I forget to fill up a car with gas, he knows how and will just have to leave 10 minutes earlier.  If his preferred clothes aren’t clean and pressed, wear something different.  Cell phone not charged — use car charger during drive.  There are always work-arounds, even when the cable modem breaks in the middle of my work day and the cable people won’t talk to me because my name is “not on the account. Is there another # where Mr. Blackwell can be reached?”  You betcha, buddy!

No, it’s really no different at all from other people’s lives.  Well, no different than our lives have always been . . .

A Rare Visitation

Yesterday, a group of us visited Petal, MS (my husband takes me to the nicest places! Ok, I’m serious!) to see a visitor to our area who is rarely seen. He accommodated us with frequent songs, acrobatics, and preening. Sound distasteful? Well, not really. Not when you realize that the visitor was a bird, a great bird, a REALLY GREAT bird: the Vermillion Flycatcher.

So we hung out in the cold, damp of an overcast Sunday afternoon watching this magnificent creature fly around a marshy pond, catching insects and generally ruling the roost. Of course, we watched other birds, too, (palm warbler, yellow-rumped warblers, cardinals, Eastern Phoebe, Red-tailed hawks, kestrals, Sharp-Shinned Hawk, blackbirds, and more) but this guy, this rare wanderer to our damp, cold land, held our fascination firmly.

Why here, when this is a western bird, known for hanging in deserty places, liking heat. Why now, when no strong storms have passed through, no winds to blow him in, no wandering females he was chasing? Who knows, but I do know it was great habitat: lots of bugs, protected from most predators, water and lots of room to fly….although he was working hard to eat, he also looked like he was having fun, cutting through scrub, swooping low to the water, and generally entertaining the odd humans on shore. May be the best Sunday I’ve had in awhile.

Today?  I was back at work, working on an NEH Grant application, cooking up another NEH project (proposal due next week), but all day — I was dreaming of red…

What a Week!

It started with MLK holiday, which turned into wonderful work for The Writer (and me as tagalong) when he was asked to “fill in” for a speaker at a senior lunch at his mom’s church.  We had a great lunch, a great time, and drew (according to the lovely, generous facilitator Bob Atkinson) the biggest crowd in some long time!  A great way for Ronnie to start off his New Year work-wise!

Then, Tuesday was work for me, but I confess that I kept the inaugural activities and commentary up and running for a good part of the morning, crying intermittently at the hope & promise on all those faces in the Washington crowd.  I am (in my own non-god-worshipping way) praying for our new President and all our leaders.

And, then just work.  So grateful still to have a job — THIS job.  So fortunate as companies around the globe lay off workers and people’s lives get tumbled about into confusion and fear.  Even with higher ed budget cuts, I am trying not to let myself get caught up in the fearfulness about it all.  Trying to stay rooted in the present and be grateful for what is — right here, right now.  I am so blessed and have so much to be grateful for.

What about you? What’s happening in your lives?  What are you grateful for, afraid of today?  What’s on your mind, what’s worrying you?

2009 . . . Happy 12th Night! Happy 25th to Us!

25 years ago yesterday, I got married, saving my long-time love, Ronnie Blackwell. And he married me, too, and saved me right back! Today, I am still grateful that it was him who found me, who settled on me, who gathered me into his fold and made me his own (and vice versa!). Ok, yes, there are days I want to strangle him! Sometimes more than a day at a time! But, generally, we are looking in the same direction, making progress on the vision, looking through the same colored glasses, holding hands and crossing roads together, and still sharing nap mats and juice boxes.

This week was a big one in terms of anniversaries for us, as Ronnie also celebrated his first anniversary with the Sun Herald as their “birding columnist.” Of course, he celebrated by NOT having a column in Sunday’s paper; apparently, mailboxes filled and his article never got received by the editors. But, we’ll all overlook that little incident and keep plugging along…he is already at work on this week’s articles.

And, of course, this week is bittersweet for me as it is the first anniversary of my brother’s death…a whole year. Unbelievable still that he is gone from my life forever. I can only guess what it must be like for his wife and Christopher…still have not had the heart to bring myself back to family photos to do a collection for Chris….maybe this year for his birthday…

People keep asking me what we’re “doing” to mark the big anniversary. What does one DO? It just IS…another day, another piece of the cake, another experience…of course, it is significant that we’ve managed to string together enough bites of life to add up to 25 YEARS, but we just don’t have any big plans. Dinner with family/friends, a good bottle of wine, a cake shared with friends on Thursday night, we’ll probably take a picture (oops! we did!), and then we’ll just go on with our lives, stringing together more days, more bites of life, and see where those take us. It is a good ride.