Slow Downs
There are certain smells and sounds of nature in the air in a late, midwestern US summer; very grounding and familiar to me, they are. Condo living in the densely concrete city for 3 years had temporarily caused me to forget about them, but they are still buried in my brain and easily return when given attention. It’s like I can instinctively determine the month or even the week of a season that’s not winter by the smells and sounds in nature associated with it. It’s not something that I’m cognitively aware of until I stop to observe, be present, slow down in my surroundings.
A couple of weeks ago, we had a cool down in the temperatures and the humidity decreased significantly as well. I welcomed the reprieve and took in a deep breath to saturate my memories with the fragrance of the season. Ah, slow downs… do we know what they are? Do we know how to incorporate them without branding them, monetizing them, or feeling shame or guilt about them?
Also with condo living, I had nearly forgotten the constant shrill cicadas make throughout the summer months. The ever present crescendos and decrescendos that shift with the intensity of volume depending on how many cicadas show up for orchestra practice, had slipped my mind. Sometimes, I have been a witness when one cicada has a solo performance and leaves this life to become a meal for a bird. When that bird is in flight with the cicada in its beak, it’s an entirely different song!
Thinking of birds, which I often do, we’ve had a new-to-me-species in our midst since moving just outside of downtown Detroit… one that I am thoroughly enjoying. Recently, I was busy in our upstairs bedroom with morning chores, when I heard the newly familiar tonal “cluck” of a pheasant. I watched him walk into our next-door neighbor’s backyard from the alleyway. Then he proceeded to skittishly cross our mutually joined driveways and peruse our backyard. I hurried downstairs to our sunroom to get a closer look. After checking out our backyard, it appeared that he took a slight but alert nap buried and cleverly camouflaged in our impatiens as he stood motionless for nearly 20 minutes or so. After his nap, he seemed to panic a little when he realized that there wasn’t a direct route through the fence into our other neighbor’s backyard. However, he was tenacious in his endeavor and he prevailed through the singular narrow space between our black cement block wall and the chainlink fence. He remained in the area gathering seeds and bits and bugs from the neighbor’s garden spaces for at least an hour longer. I enjoyed his company and his beauty and his quiet careful nature as I wrote and breathed in the reprieve from the heat and humidity.
The heat and humidity have returned again. The reprieve is gone for awhile, according to the Weather Channel, but I still know that August is coming to a close. The fragrance of autumn is around the corner; then the cicadas will no longer perform their symphonic sounds and the birds will begin their migrations. I breathe, I absorb my surroundings, I incorporate the momentary slow down into my being even while I’m very aware of how the earth and its people seem to be frenzied, frenetic, frustrated and speeding faster than ever.
