I’m in my office. It is snowing lightly outside, and suddenly I hear them — a flock of sandhill cranes flying overhead. So I step outside for a moment to observe their formation and remember that the world is still a beautiful and wondrous place.
This realization is what is keeping me grounded amidst the alarming and increasingly dystopian news that keeps coming. Yes, I will stand up and fight as much as possible.
But I am also taking time to stop, breathe and listen. I filmed the video here (turn the sound up!) while skiing earlier this week. I noticed a sound, so I paused to look up and listen. The noise is so distinctive, a gentle trilling sound.
There is now a population of cranes that winter near here, but this time of year — spring — also marks the mass migration of larger populations who stop at Fruit Grower’s Reservoir on the South slope of the Grand Mesa on their migratory route. It’s a sign of spring, just as much as the apricots that are now blooming down the road from me. (I hope mine can wait a little longer, so as to avoid a freeze.)
Happy spring!
Yes, Christie, one of those apricot trees you were looking at was probably mine, the large, shapely one on the west side of the road. I saw last evening it was starting to bloom, and then looked at the weather report to see the mid-twenty-degree nights coming up, ugh. Perhaps another year deprived of large quantities of gorgeous apricots. Though I’ll be long gone from the neighborhood by harvest time … in the too-slow process of expatriating.
I did see your tree starting to bloom John. Hoping the cold coming now will keep ours in check, but there’s not much we can do… Sorry to think of you gone for apricot season.