I noticed the sound of little birds lately. It is October 1st, and it sounds like spring. They chatter and twitter, unlike the mockingbirds of a few months ago that would sing, non-stop day and night, mimicking every sound they ever heard including car alarms.
No, these are the sounds I remember from my childhood. Here’s a memory: We are in Brooklyn visiting my grandmother and aunt at #1 Tennis Court. (How’s that for an address?) And it’s time to leave, the sun is going down, the shadows are lengthening, the light is gold, the air is full of spring and the sound is of birds. Little sparrows chirping and tweeting. They sound, well, happy. it is the 1960s and the years are filling with promise, and a pre-teen mind is filling with Junior High School and all that goes with it.
I’ve heard that sound
many times in my childhood. Where I grew up, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, in
Stuyvesant Town, a huge post war housing development, there were trees and more trees; trees beget birds. In addition, there were all kinds of crawlies to play with which would appear from between the cobble stones under the benches. Ants. Oh, we had ants, galore. Caterpillars: the fuzzy yellow kind with red noses. This was my knowledge of nature, city nature, that had the resilience to appear between cracks and from concrete. How does this happen? How does nature find its way into the dirt, into the sky, under stones? In a city?
A mere hors d’ouevre
There is a spider that begins his journey at the front of the house in the spring. He is huge, about 2 inches, and has striped legs. If you leave the house after dark you find yourself entrapped by silk from head to toe: his webs are anchored from stair rail to rail. He would dismantle it each morning and re-create it at sundown. After his web has been destroyed a few times by humans who inadvertently walk into it, he makes his way to the side of the house and sets up shop over a window. Then he somehow travels down the concrete driveway, more than 50 feet, then up to phone wires. Finally he gets to the deck, attaches himself to the umbrella and chairs and scouts for dinner.
I never observed anything we could consider gourmet caught in the web.
Except maybe, me.
My neighbor has been growing tomatoes that are more than a pound.
At this moment, the birds are quiet: I just hear lawn mowers and leaf blowers. But, let me mention the monarch butterfly that zoomed overhead this morning while my neighbor and I were talking at the fence. She was handing me another one of her outrageous pound-and-a-quarter tomatoes when the orange and black wings caught my eye, sailed over us, above the next neighbor’s fence and into some squash blossoms, beyond, yellow and orange squash blossoms, then it flew straight up, like a UFO, and into the atmosphere.
What fascinates me is that nature seems to know its purpose, each component of what is, has a job that is not questioned. Feed. Live. Reproduce. Keep it going. I don’t see insects or tomatoes fighting wars or running for office. They just are, and they seem fine with it.
This has been a great summer for these little guys: I never had such good luck producing food.
Flowers.
In New York City you can frequently see Rose of Sharon bushes which are actually a variety of wild hibiscus, all over people’s lawns and yards. They are “volunteer” plants: the seeds are likely dropped by birds or wind and self-planted and they are lovely.
This hibiscus plant, given to me two years ago by my son, has been producing flowers in and out of the house throughout the seasons.
My neighbor wanted Morning Glories and planted them weeks ago; it took about two months for the flowers to show their gorgeous faces. Until then, there were just ivy-like leaves growing up, entwining, wrapping around whatever was nearby for support. And then one morning there was glory. The flowers appeared, just when we were giving up hope of ever seeing them. There was the cornflower blue, there was the light filtering through the diaphanous petals, the sun, beyond.
And there was the lesson: just when you think something you’ve been hoping for will not happen, if you wait, patiently, just another day, you may be surprised.
I love all of them.
I used to have a vegetable garden. Maybe I will again.
Oh! I hope to grow morning glories on a trellis outside one of my windows to block the view of the neighbors junk.