In the Fog

The future is a fog that is still hanging out over the sea, a boat that floats home or does not.  
-- Anne Sexton

The fog hung thickly around me as I walked a road through woods near my home early in the morning on the first day of spring. The air was cool and moist on a day that promised to rise into the mid 70s, even though we are still in the middle of March. 

Morning fog (Margo D. Beller)

The fog grayed out everything including the still-bare trees, the shrubs and grasses starting to go green. It obscured the street lights from the nearby food pantry and the cars that were invisible until nearly upon me.

Birds seem different in the fog. Their calls and songs seem louder. I walked and heard a Carolina wren, a little bird with a big song. I stopped to look up and there it was, a small, dark shape on a high branch. It was not perturbed by the fog. Its instinct says it is time to announce its breeding territory. This bird was not alone. By the time I got home an hour later I heard at least five Carolina wrens as well as a number of other birds including fish crows, cardinals and a few robins.

There was no one at the dog park. Is it the early hour - just after dawn - or the fog that has kept people and their pets away? Or something else? I wondered. There were few cars driving this road, too. I had my solitude but had to walk quickly because I didn't have much time before I had to start work.

It was 7:15 on a Friday morning in the age of COVID-19.

Normally, the road and the dog park would be busier. Early on, the few people I saw during my walk either traveled in a different direction or, if we passed each other, rigorously stayed on the other side of the street to give us "social distance." If we made eye contact we smiled or nodded our heads. One man gave me a little wave. On the way home the runners came out, most staying in the street but a few were on the sidewalk. I gave those a wide berth.

(Margo D. Beller)

This is a dangerous and uncertain time. MH has been ill and the day before this walk I had begun feeling strange, perhaps unwell. To me this felt like a cold. The common cold is caused by a coronavirus, after all. But THIS one, COVID-19, is a different beast. Too much computer work gives me a headache. Is this what caused today's. The weather has been cold and damp. Is that why I can't feel warm? I haven't the foggiest idea.

MH, in that scientific manner of his, reasons he has a mild form of COVID-19. He has stayed home and rests in the guest room. He reasons the flu shot we had in October is helping his immune system fight this virus, and I hope that is the case for both of us. 

I am taking the attitude of an old friend, who said his way of dealing with illness is to ignore it. Unfortunately, it is hard to do when the news seems to be nothing but this virus, how nations are reacting to limit its spread and how many have died. Those of us with mild symptoms are told to stay home and avoid emergency rooms, and I am more than happy to do that. I am lucky I can work from home and continue to be paid. Many, many others can't stay home because of the nature of their jobs or because if they don't work they don't get paid. I was in that situation until a few months ago.

The morning fog lingered into afternoon as the temperature rose and children who have been blocked from school, sporting events and even gathering in town parks kept their playing to their yards or took walks or bike rides with their parents along my side street. I could see and hear them through my open office window. I don't blame them. I need to get out or go crazy, too. 

Overnight it rained, the fog lifted and the temperature fell to a more seasonable level. The birds were waiting for me this dawn to come out with the feeders, particularly the male cardinal that flies to a nearby bush as I hang them and then rushes to eat at the house-shaped feeder when I am back on the porch.

Empty dog park, streetlight through the trees (Margo D. Beller)

This Saturday morning I waited for the sun to break through the clouds as I  watched him and the other birds. At one point I heard a hairy woodpecker, an uncommon and skittish visitor. One appeared at the suet to eat but I kept hearing the call coming from another direction. Then she flew off and the male appeared. A pair! I'm supporting a breeding pair of hairy woodpeckers! I am protective of hairys. I rarely see them except at the suet feeder. This is why I put out suet, I thought.

This is why I feed birds.

Life goes on, these hairy woodpeckers were telling me. You might have your virus scaring the hell out of you but we have other things to concern us. We must mate, build a nest that is hidden and inaccessible - perhaps in one of these big trees in your yard - and create a family to carry on our species. Your feeder helps us, yes, but if wasn't here we'd do what we always do and find food to survive.

We all have to survive, I agreed as I watched these birds with tears in my eyes. I hope we all do.