Journal of a Sabbatical

August 28, 1998

the malaise before the storm
wasting time or loafing the soul? you decide.

Copyright © 1998, Janet I. Egan

Suddenly an amazing number of pigeons wheel past the window in formation. Crossing from west to east, they glint in the sunlight, especially the all-white one who looks out of place in the flock. They're gone in a second to wherever it's so urgent for them to get to in the middle of the fading summer day. A car door creaks open and closes with a dry thud. A screen door slams. Everything is dead calm again. Pigeons, car doors, screen doors... all quiet. Not a leaf moves on the starlings' roost tree. The house sparrows sit silently in a line on the roof next door. Not a ripple mars the surface of the empty swimming pool.

I sit here desperately trying to think of something worth writing about. Finally I go out for coffee.

Tom asks if I am worried about going to Rhode Island this weekend because of the approach of Hurricane Bonnie. I say not really. Conversation covers sumo, cathexis vs catharsis, nature vs nurture, finding spirituality attractive in a partner, cloning pets, Hurricane Bonnie (again), a noisy impatient spider...

Some three hours later I emerge into the sunlight, cooler and more motivated after a grande latte and a hummus & sun dried tomato sandwich.

Later I sit at the North Pool Overlook in the refuge watching a deer run through spartina and purple loosestrife past a flock of black ducks. The ducks don't respond. The deer pauses in the road, looks to the right, looks to the right, and bounds into the scrub. A northern harrier flies low over the salt marsh. The ducks remain still. The deer is long gone. A lone tree swallow swoops down on a mosquito and is gone in a second.

At Nelson Island, I walk for a long time. Least sandpipers, semipalmated plovers, killdeer, lesser yellowlegs, semipalmated sandpipers and a great egret feed in the shallow pools in the marsh. I startle a least sandpiper feeding in a puddle in the middle of the road. A kestrel watches me from the top of what used to be an osprey nesting platform. Tiny fish break the surface of the puddles to grab mosquitoes. Mosquitoes begin to feed on me. I must keep moving.

On Stackyard Road a horse wanders back and forth oblivious to cars. It stops in the middle of the road. I stop and wait. A red van coming the other way stops and waits. The horse stands there stock still. It flicks its tail at the cloud of mosquitoes and walks slowly back the way it came.

The shadows lengthen. The sun begins to set amid lavender clouds. A flock of mourning doves bursts from the grass and lands en masse on a wire further down the road. Leaves tremble everywhere from starling song, not yet from storm winds.