Valentine's Day and Cedar Waxwings

I'm not a poet. During my lunch hour today, though, I scribbled this little ditty and I almost took it out of this post. I decided to leave it in since this is my journal, it's true, and very silly.


Camera, walking shoes, field guide in my bag in the mornings

Husband, perplexed, rolls his eyes at me as a warning, and thinks…

Does she need a suitcase?

Is my eccentric wife a bird-hunting nutcase?

Camera around my neck,

Down the driveway for the mail, I trek,

He asks, “You need a camera to get the mail?”

“Well, yeah…I might see something…like…a snail.”

My husband, Michael, doesn’t understand my fun with birds and photography. He likes the sunset photos and the dog photos, but doesn’t quite get the birds. However, this is my gift from him for Valentine’s Day. This Swavorski now sits in the middle of my curio, directly under the light. He isn’t so bad, after all!

I remember when a Mourning Dove crashed into our sunroom in Maryland and died on a pond rock. I found the poor thing, cold and stiff, and Michael followed me to the scene. He couldn’t believe the bird was dead, picked it up, and placed its belly on his ear like you would hold a telephone. He turned his head to the side, listening for a heartbeat. I interrupted him and said, “Michael, if you are calling the bird, or waiting for its voice, there is no answer.” So, he really does care…

When I arrived at the hair salon's parking lot yesterday I saw a silhouette of a flock of birds resting on a small tree. Under the tree, they were flitting and flying in and out of low berry bushes. It was a rainy, gray day, so I had to get close. But when I parked the car and approached them, they fled. Seeing their crest, I knew they weren’t cardinals and definitely not titmice…hmmmm. But there’s more ahead!

There is something so luxurious and relaxing about resting your head back in the sink and have your stylist massage your scalp. I always close my eyes. Why doesn’t it feel the same when you try it with your own hands? Amber is a pretty young woman, tanned, with loads of long auburn and brown hair and a pearly white smile. All of the cute stylists wear black trendy outfits and black high heels. I wonder how they do it? If I was a stylist and the salon opened at 9am, I’d be limping pathetically by 9:30! Actually, I’d be disabled. Period. For a while, I was the only frumpy over-50 woman in the place but I was glad to see another one walk in later, frumpier than me. Ahem...I'm not that frumpy.

Feeling a lot lighter and sheik with my freshly done hair, I got in my car and scanned that tree again, and found it still full of those birds. In pursuit, I turned off the radio, rolled down the window, approached at one mile per hour and stopped the car fifteen away. In the driver’s seat, I raised my camera... in… slow… motion.

A lifer for me. Beautiful Cedar Waxwing. Of course, I didn’t know they were Cedar Waxwings until I got home and downloaded the photos, but I knew they were a special find for me. If the sun were shining, I couldn't have imagined how beautiful their colors would have been…

Today I went to the grocery store at the same strip mall. Through my windshield, busy Cedar Waxwings, on a sunny day.

Oh, how lovely.




From my driver's seat, in the sun, simply gorgeous.

I wish for my friends, who are buried under loads of snow and ice, that it will melt quickly and the sun will shine on you soon.