August 16, 2012

I'm a survivor.  I know that about myself. I've gone to the edge and looked over and said - Nah, it ain't that bad. It will work out.

I went to a college where there were lots of bridges over narrow deep gorges. It was a pretty campus. It was also known for having a high suicide rate. When it all got be too much some jumped over, "gorging out", we called it in that cynical  college student vernacular. Every day I'd walk to class, cross a bridge and look over and down to the rocks below. It was too pretty to spoil with a smashed up body. And anyway the pressures on me were not so great - I was an ordinary kid with unexceptional talents. Simply completing 4 years was enough. All around me my compatriots were doing self destructive things. There were lots of drugs and of course the old standby - alcohol. Easy routes to self destruction and copping out. As a female I didn't have to worry about getting drafted to fight in Vietnam but I did have to be concerned about an unplanned pregnancy. Abortion was illegal back then and the pill not readily available to 18 year olds. I graduated from college at 19 years old, not knowing very much but knowing deep down in my bones that I am a survivor - I don't quit.

I had to look at that again about 10 years later. I had married young, to a guy who was essentially the boy next door, although I'd had to return to the country of my birth to find him. I made the vow "for richer for poorer, for better for worse, in sickness and in health till death do us part." My parents had remained together, although from the outside they seemed to be ill-suited so I didn't expect marriage to be easy or a bed of roses. One by one I gave up my ideals; that he would be an intellectual companion, that we would encourage each other to be bold, to take risks, that we would travel and have a diverse group of friends. He was sickly, his stomach hurt a lot and he used his pains to control me. We couldn't eat out, our diet had to be bland, no pizza no Chinese food and so on. He din't like my friends or the people I worked with. My world got smaller. I gave up job opportunities for him, I moved to cities I didn't want to live in for him. I stifled myself for him and I told myself it didn't matter. He wasn't a bad guy; he didn't drink, he didn't abuse me - until one day I woke up and I knew I would die If I continued to live in this marriage. It wasn't a question of changing, or accomodating or adapting, it was a question of survival. If I didn't leave I would die, I would have an un-intentional car accident or I would get sick. So I left. Just - like - that. I found a place to live- took half of our savings account and moved out. Started over. Tapped into that core that believes in survival.

August 22, 2012

It's 2:15pm Eastern Standard Time, August 22 in the year 2012. I am 60 years old, soon to be 61. But that is not what this is really about, is it? Clock time. How many minutes, how many seconds do we get to live? And of those finite number for how many are we really alive and fully conscious as opposed to just functioning, respiring, digesting metabolizing. I could go down the path of what it means to be conscious, conscious of self, the entity that resides somewhere in this body? the head that watches, thinks, calculates and evaluates. I could speculate about biochemical pathways and synapses and chemical messengers being transmitted and received. But that's not what this is about.

Where I am in time. From a biological point of view I'm finished. I've reached adulthood, procreated, reproduced myself and my mate and raised offspring to adulthood. If we were to disappear from the face of the earth tomorrow they would survive, they have the skills. In a Darwinian sense I'm done. In a philosophical sense every day hence is a bonus. Each day a gift to be savored and enjoyed.

I was privileged to observe the nest of 2 wrens. They built it in 24 hours in a hanging plant directly outside my kitchen window. They abandoned it, or so it seemed for 5 days and on the 6th day I peeked in and spied an egg or two. In total the female laid 4 eggs. Exactly 15 days after hatching 4 tiny birds flew the nest. Those were a busy 15 days, a constant to-ing and fro-ing of adults carrying spiders and other insects. When the nestlings finally fledged 3 of them flew up and away into the trees but the last one fluttered down into the grass and chirped feebly. He had feathers fully quilled but there was down on his head. By my count one egg hatched 2 days later than the others. I hovered anxiously watching out for neighborhood cats and other predators as did Mom and Pop wren. They sat in the nearby bushes and trilled loudly and longly and aggressively. Wrens are tiny birds, smaller than a  house sparrow with a voice that belies their size. This is what it feels like to  turn your teenagers loose in the world - a 16 year old with a freshly minted driver's license. They are as vulnerable as this tiny wren. He blinked a couple of times and hop-hop-hopped  into the cover of some hostas. A few minutes later the azalea bushes began to quiver. At least he was off the ground.

That's where I am today - a human being who has the time and the curiosity to watch a pair of birds build a nest and then observe on a daily basis as the family grows, develops and leaves.