ElleSpeak

Went to bed last night on a low note, didn’t sleep well, and woke up this morning feeling sad and blue, tears streaming down my cheeks. I asked myself, “Why am I feeling this way?? “

My answer: I miss my family, I miss the beauty and comfort of my own home, I miss meeting my friends for coffee and chatting with them sans mask, gloves, or phone screen between us.

For weeks now I’ve told myself each day…find something to be grateful for while we are “social distancing” here in Sedona. Usually, it’s extremely easy for me to do while I’m here in this magical place, but this morning I just couldn’t push my way through the heavy fog I felt closing in on me.

My love and best friend, Mark, is feeling it too. He’s done a great job dealing with anxiety and sadness, but today we each found ourselves lost in a sad, sorry funk, homesick, and tired of taking extraordinary measures to be safe.

We love challenging ourselves with new hikes almost every day, but with both of us being tired from a long, restless night, we decided we needed an easy hike today; so we visited the Sedona Wetlands where there are no magnificent red rocks to be found, and the ground is perfectly level; but, there are many large swamp ponds filled with beautiful cattails, tall graceful grasses, and a plethora of birdlife.

We arrive at the wetlands and find a constant, but pleasant wind blowing through the trees and grasses. As it gently blew us along the graveled paths that separate the swamp ponds, we heard over and over again the distinctive song of the red-winged blackbird, and we watched the red flash of their wings as they landed delicately on the tip of a tall blade of grass, swaying to and fro with the wind, maintaining perfect balance…absolutely remarkable!

A few more steps and we’re startled by the sound of wings moving just ahead of us…and then…the amazing sight of a Great Blue Heron rising up from the edge of the marsh where he’d been fishing, wings spread wide, long legs dangling, and water dripping from his feet as he ascends to the sky.

I associate sightings of the Great Blue Heron with otherworldly visits from my Dad. These graceful giants always seem to find me when I’m blue, and their incredible beauty lightens my heart.

We change direction and walk toward a large open body of water where we see coots, with their glistening black feathers, and white bills shining brightly in the sun, as they float peacefully on the rippling water. One flies right past us with nesting material she’s gathered and carries in her mouth, heading for the nest she’s building to raise her family.

We look up and see a large family of swallows putting on an aerial display for us…their wings swept back…they are diving…soaring…climbing…dipping…sweeping…floating…playing…riding the wind! To me they are breathtakingly beautiful, tears begin to fill my eyes, and my heart swells with an overwhelming sense of joy.

The wind blows us gently back to the marshy ponds, and as we walk alongside the tall grasses our path is strewn with grasshoppers flitting about, here and there, sometimes jumping so high the whirring sound of their wings is right next to my ear. They remind me of my childhood home and the many grasshoppers that lived in my backyard on Chester Street.

Walking toward the edge of the next pond I hear a loud, unique bird song I haven’t heard before. I stand still, then slowly turn, looking all around me, hoping to spy the owner of this voice before my movement startles him and he flies away, never to be seen. A few seconds later I’ve found him, perched on an outer limb of a green-leafed tree, bobbing up and down with the wind, now and then singing out in what seems to be his loudest voice. It’s a Great-Tailed Grackle, large as a crow, gleaming black feathers, iridescent head, and long, wide, full tail. Two of them now, each bobbing up and down on a branch with the wind, they begin a conversation only they can understand, but which brings me great delight.

As we turn and leave the wetlands behind us it feels like the wind has blown away many of the negative feelings we awoke with this morning. The beauty of the marshy ponds with their rippling water, and tall, swaying grasses have eased our nerves, and the graceful flight and delightful birdsong we’ve seen and heard, has lightened our hearts. I am grateful for this place and for the peace it has helped to bring to us.

I hope you have a place in nature to visit when your heart is heavy. It might be a walk in a park, a window that reveals a bird feeder, a patio with chipmunks running here and there, or perhaps a tree with squirrels chasing each other up and down the trunk.

Wherever it is, I hope you are able to find the peace of wild things.

Copyright 2020
Eleanor Hugar Laker

The Peace Of Wild Things
By Wendell Berry

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.