On polemics and peace

and a bone cold walk under a winter night sky

What happened to the world? When did everything become them or us, left or right, mask or no mask?

I’m in the passenger seat of the car as we travel down the highway with the heat on full blast. A bag of vinegar kettle potato chips is open on the seat beside me and I’ve unfurled a large square of wax paper onto my lap.

“Do you want to eat yours now?” I say to my spouse Janyce, while biting into a tightly wrapped flour tortilla filled with roast beef and pickles. She is driving.

“Give me a minute” she says, dipping her hand into the cheddar cheese Sunchips bag on the cupholder. “Let me just get onto the Pike at least.”

I munch away to the low sounds of NPR voices on the radio, but I’m not listening. Instead, I’m marveling that it’s not even 5:00 pm yet, and it’s still light out, with the setting orange sun displaying a blue-raspberry slushy sky. We’ve escaped. We dashed out the door after leaving my ex-husband Jim all the instructions to dog-sit our new rescue for a few hours.

“I got it,” he said.

“Oh and here’s a sandwich and some Oreos and a bottle of wine for you,” I said, pointing to the tray near the television while zipping up my coat.

“When you said Oreos, I thought it would be the whole pack,” he said, turning the small rectangular package in his hand. “Just six?”

“We’ll be back around 7:30,” I said running out the front door.

It’s been a stressful week and I, for one, need to chill out. Our new dog is afraid and getting her to do her business outside requires a lot of effort. Janyce relishes the routines actually, and can calmly wait for her to make the first move. But me? Not so much. I’ve pushed her wiggly butt out the door to sit in the cold back yard and I’ve let her stand on the bed, paws on the windowsill, to look out the window. True to form, I’ve been impatient. And that’s not even the half of it. I’ve also been somewhat maniacal this week, banging my hand on the bird window and shouting like a lunatic, as I’ve watched my carefully-curated wild bird station fall to ruin ever since a small flock of starlings found their way into our yard.

I’m going to vent here, just a little about these birds, and then, I promise, I’ll be over it.

The starlings arrive in a pack of six, or eight, and even as many as 12, (I swear they are multiplying by the day) and they approach the bird feeder from every side. Their strategy is to overwhelm, marching all in a row on the ground, until they bully all the other birds out of the way. They can decimate the pile of mealworms I left for my five resident bluebirds in a matter of minutes. They are ugly eaters too— gobbling things up while leaving their big white droppings splattered on the squirrel baffle and smearing the sides of the water bowl.

I want them gone. I’ve felt rage all week over this. Over birds.

Except, I know this is not just the birds. One has to simply turn on the radio at night, tuned to a newscast on NPR or BBC and listen to any one of a dozen or so breaking stories to feel the way I do. At least it’s not all about Omicron every second anymore. But it’s hard not to see the starlings looming, like speckled sentinels, taking over the branch that is usually covered with docile mourning doves warming themselves in the weak winter sun, and not think about bad omens, and war, or the dirty look I got when I walked in to the neighborhood deli shop to grab a few sandwiches wearing my mask, or remember hearing the words of our President in a news conference this week saying that Putin will pay a “serious and dear price” for invading Ukraine.

What happened to the world? When did everything become them or us, left or right, mask or no mask? And why does everything feel so ominous? Watching nature usually brings me peace. But this is the third pandemic winter I’m living and working in the house and I’m going around the bend a little. Janyce is, too.

“We should cancel the Owl Prowl,” I said, while sitting on the couch the night before wrapped in a blanket.

“Really?” she said. “But that was part of your Christmas present?”

“I can’t deal with it, it’s cold out, it’s too much and now the starlings,” I said.

“What do the starlings have to do with this?” she said, now visibly annoyed.

“Forget it, I can’t talk to you,” I said.

“You are mad at me, now? Fine, we won’t go. Why am I so anxious this week?” she said.

Janyce largely escaped the worst of the pandemic-induced world worry up till now and embraced a new set of routines and schedules at home with ease. But we all have our limits.

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We arrive at the Audubon parking lot and I wipe potato chip crumbs off my lap while grabbing the hand warmer packs under my wool mittens. We meet up with five other owl enthusiasts for a short walk down an icy path in the woods.

“Hey, I’m glad we decided to do this,” I say, as we’re walking gingerly down the icy hill holding on to the rope fence.

“Me too,” says Janyce. “But I wish I had some of those Yaktrax for my…

“Shhh,” I say. “Hear that?”

We both stop while the others trudge ahead, looking up into the trees. The sun has completely set and all that’s left is a whitish glow at the horizon—just bright enough to backlight a bunch of bare winter branches stretched out against the sky. With any luck we’ll catch the majestic shadow of a great horned owl. But even if we don’t, it’s good to be out of the house.