It Being September 1st

And the day being drizzly, way earlier than predicted by the weather forecasters last night, I am at my desk, not, as planned when I awoke, on my bicycle, and not, additionally, checking in the beehive. Instead, writing notes to myself, reminders of tasks to accomplish and friends to reach out to.erDo you know what is amazing? Almost anything can occur almost anywhere. I wonder if the word “never” has any validity. Can never ever beOn Saturday, walking to the downtown along one of the multiple canals that traverse and once powered this city, which now accumulate discarded shopping carts, bicycles, pillows, bags-plastic and otherwise, paint cans, plastic toys, and which, periodically, are drained and emptied of such debris, and currently are running pretty nicely full of water, we saw a vulture. Not high atop a giant oak, nor, as they seem usually to be, among fellow vultures on a slanted surface such as a house roof or a sand dune, no, plonked in a medium tree along the canal, then flying a narrow circle out from and back to the tree, and resettled in that tree. Be careful small urban scutterers!! The vulture has an eye out for you.

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We, way larger than the vulture, continued fearlessly on our way toward that gold dome in the background and then well beyond.

I had no more expected to see a vulture in this vicinity than I would expect to see a saguaro cactus growing. (But the way of the earth’s weather, that, too may in the near future occur, or water ever overflowing the barriers, or ice forming and melting on alternating days.)

One day last week, I watched a Cooper’s hawk in a swoop and one call, capture a blue jay, on my front porch. I watched and could not look away. Then I looked away and could not watch, nor stand to hear anymore. I walked to the back of the house. This, too, I had not ever witnessed before. This, I did NOT photograph.

So, never. I believe I have just shown to myself that never is a word with a raison d’etre. It is for negating the non-likelihood of an event, for saying instead, “you will never not have experienced this” again.

Here it is!! A dreary day, and Kate sending out a dreary message. May it not continue so.

So, I angle off and finish this way, toward the northwest of the backyard. And now and again in the course of the day these past few weeks, have had the joy of listening to a rooster crow!! Ugh, you may say. But not I. It is new in this neighborhood, and it is, each time, a call for me of morning. A new day beginning. A new day.