I got up at 5 AM, preparing my body for tomorrow, the first day after Spring break. It is warm in the house, 73 degrees downstairs, where for security reasons the windows were closed overnight. They are now open, to let in the slightly cooler (65 degrees) air before the sun comes up.
There are few sounds from the house itself, other than the mild clicking as I type on the keyboard of my MacBook. But through the open window are the morning calls of several dozen birds.
Several of our cats sit in the windows, the one open here in the livingroom, another in the adjacent dining room. Their feline instinct keeps them alert.
And I remember the past, all because of the sounds of this morning.
Our address when I was growing up said Larchmont, but we lived in the unincorporated part of the Town of Mamaroneck. We were less than a mile from the Larchmont train station, just down Chatsworth, Were we to head that way, we would pass the then open space that later would become the end of the interchange of the New England Thruway.
Across Lafayette from the end of our gravel (and hilly) driveway was an undeveloped plot. By the time I entered high school the trees had been cut down and several house built, but as a child there were vines hanging from the trees, and we could swing into the woods and play Tarzan.
If we walked up Huguenot, one which our house faced, and then turned left onto the cul-de-sac of Normandy, at the end it was also undeveloped, with more woods.
By junior high school, into which I skipped (7th grade) after four weeks in 6th grade at Murray Avenue elementary, I was already getting up early - at first by 5:30, later by 5. I played two musical instruments, and practiced piano in the morning before school, and cell when I returned home in the late afternoon. It was the Fall of 1957 when I skipped, and by then we had modernized the house, including finishing the basement. There was 2 2nd kitchen there, and my father had bought an upright piano so I could get up and practice without waking the rest of the family.
But before I practiced, I had to take our Welsh terrier, Sir Belvedere (my uncle Bobby had mangled the name Sir Bedivere of the Welsh Knight of Arthurian legend) out for a quick walk. He assumed that my awakening meant he was getting to relieve himself, to sniff. And on our brief excursion, I would hear sounds of morning during Spring or Fall (during the summers I would spend 8 weeks at Interlochen, beginning at age 8 in 1954). In winter one never knew - it could be the stillness of sound muffled by a snowfall.
I think I have always been a morning person. Perhaps that is one reason I had little trouble adapting to a monastic scheduie, as I did on my three visits to Mount Athos (about which I wrote here last night), or in the summer I spent at St. Gregory's, an Episcopalian Benedictine Monastery in Three Rivers, MI. Nowadays early morning is when I am most likely to write - after feeding the cats who have replaced that Welsh terrier in expectations that my arising is to serve them - and woe be unto me should I try to sleep much beyond 5:30 on a weekday (and they know the difference from a weekend) - at least one will crawl or jump upon me, lick my face and demand food.
There are fewer sounds of humans at these early hours. Yes, I can hear the occasional car, but the buses on the route in front of our house have not yet started their daily trips. The refrigerator may make sounds, and at times I would be likely to hear the fan transporting either heat from the furnace or cool air from the Central Air Conditioner just outside our front door - and I would hear it as well.
But the temperate weather today means I hear no mechanical sounds other than the occasional car. And thus I hear the birds, many of them.
When I lived in New York City I rarely heard sounds like these. I am lucky to live where I do, in Arlington. We maintain a good park system, with lots of woods. Our home is close enough to the Potomac and the George Washington Parkway that occasionally deer will wander into the County, although they are more likely on the other side of the river, and have been known to appear in downtown Washington DC having traveled through Rock Creek Park.
Here we have raccoons, squirrels, owls, chipmunks, the occasional harmless snake. The neatly mowed lawns of North Arlington also mean the occasional rat, although inside the house the worst we have seen is the occasional mouse - recently I came home on a preternaturally warm winter afternoon to think to myself that I did not remember buying that toy mouse for the cats, only to realize that it was a traumatized live field mouse - traumatized and almost petrified because the cats had been playing with it. I was able to capture it - and its mate - and return them both to the outside. Other mice have not been so lucky, and were already dead by the time I found them. With five cats, we do not often see mice.
We also used to see dead voles, because our smallest cat, Elsa, had found a small hole in a window and would go outside and bring back her trophies to present to us. Because we appreciate the natural world, and also because of the business of our front street, we do not let our cats go outside, otherwise I would not hear these morning sounds.
I also might not see the occasional rabbits, or what they draw - for the past few years we have had occasional glimpses of one of our local coyotes, which seem to be based in Lacey Woods Park about third of a mile away. And once during a heavy storm when we had lost power, as I looked out my window I saw the unmistakable movement of an otter coming out of the storm sewer across our side street, go up the block, and then come back and dive back in, using the storm sewer as a means of transportation - it connects with the creek that eventually runs into the Potomac several miles away, although first the otter would have to get past the beaver dam on the other side of Washington Boulevard.
I was lucky that our part of Larchmont/Mamaroneck was not completely developed. I got to experience a part of the natural world. Times were innocent enough that our parents thought nothing of letting us wander on our own a few blocks away, even before our preteens.
It is now past six. Perhaps the birds have an internal clock. The morning sounds have now ceased, and as today is a workday I hear increasing sounds of cars. The nights darkness begins to disappear, melting as the sun, not yet officially risen, begins to make its daily appearance.
In 28 days I turn 65. I am of an age where if I let myself my mind will wander back to the past. It does not take much for memories to take over my mind. Last night it was the sights and some of the sounds of Mount Athos, and I could remember the smells and tastes as well, my leg muscles can remember how they were tested walking up steep trails. Today I opened some windows and the birds reminded me.
Now they are gone. I hear voices in Spanish of two women walking up to the Hospital, two blocks from here, where they work. One cat, no longer fascinated by the birds outside, walks past me and heads upstairs.
I get ready to begin this day, the last of my Spring break. I have several hours of work to do to be ready for tomorrow. And I promised my wife to have the living room and dining room in order before I go to sleep tonight. I must soon get on with my tasks.
Still, I linger, with a morning cup of coffee, a slightly cool breeze coming through the window, no longer carrying the sounds of the birds, who have now move on, but reminding me of my connection with the natural world.
I have lingered for a while, oscillating mentally between awareness of the present and the memories instigated by the sounds of the morning. I stopped for a while, I accepted what the world has in its riches, riches I too often take for granted.
I am very lucky. I have had a life rich in so many ways.
Softly I hear one bird, perhaps 100 yards away, its chirps drowned out briefly as a car drives past the house, then becoming again audible.
It is time for me to move on to my morning. Another day has begun. I am ready, because the world welcomed me with morning sounds that enriched my day, and reminded me of the similar riches from which I have benefited.
Today my final word seems so very appropriate.
Peace.