This Mysterious In-Between Time

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May 10, 2020

Today was truly glorious. Also, terrible. Tense. Relaxing.  Our darling daughters ordered tacos for our Mother’s Day breakfast, I upset Julia Kate with my tone of voice and the two of us had a cry, Emi made a gorgeous fruit plate, Gretchen read a very long piece from the Times aloud to us about how Denmark had handled the coronavirus, something that did not stimulate the exact discussion hoped for, and off we went on a walk to clear our heads.  

 On our walk, we were lucky enough to catch a fledging red-tailed hawk taking flight from its nest on a light pole on the baseball field over behind Zachary Scott.  We ended up staying for hours watching the whole hawk family. Two of the fledglings were taking in the air by the nest considering the possibility of flight.  Apparently once they leave the nest, they don’t come back but because they’re not great at flying, worse at landing, and don’t know how to fend for themselves yet, the parents keep an eye out and come feed them, mostly grackles, grackles without the wings, in case you were wondering.

 We learned all this (and so much more) from this wonderful guy, who seems very old school Austin, who spends four hours a day there with his camp chair, camera (with the most protuberant zoom lens imaginable), and tripod, and has done that every year for the hawks at nesting time.  This guy drives in from Bastrop every day to do this.  On top of that, he has the eighth in a series of chemo treatments tomorrow.

 On our way home, we passed our neighbors Ray and Theresa congregated by their curb with someone named Katy who had seen a black cloud of honeybees fly down her street (and I guess she knew what they were because she’s a beekeeper), followed the swarm to Ray and Theresa’s front yard where the swarm had taken refuge in their water meter hole. She had scooped a bunch of bees out of the hole and into a cardboard box; the theory being if the queen were in the box, the workers would make their way into the box by nightfall and then she would take them out to her hives in Blanco.  Apparently being a beekeeper in Texas qualifies you for an agricultural tax exemption. 

 I don’t ever remember learning so much on walks before the coronavirus.

 Today I was happy and content; I was sad and irritated. Sometimes it’s hard always being together.  It’s hard not knowing where all this is headed.  It’s hard not having any leadership during the biggest national crisis of my lifetime.  Some days I feel like I’m disappearing; some days like I am more solid than ever in my life.

 But every day is a lesson in less is more. Our world contracts.  Our days expand. I feel both joy and a sense of my mortality more deeply.  For all of this in this mysterious in-between time I am grateful.


©2021 Joy Cunningham

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