My weird, unexpected, and perhaps slightly less than manly interest in wildflowers continues. So much so that I've taken to drying them, so I can put them out in the winter. I still have a "best friend" from my college days--though it feels strange for someone my age to have such a thing. When I told him about my new interest in wildflowers, he disapproved. Funny how Gen X men are always policing each other's masculinity...
No one ever told me that your mid-50s would be like a second childhood--a time when you regard the world with wide-eyed wonder and a fresh openness to new discoveries.
I've gone over half a century without noticing birds and wildflowers. But now? Now I can't look away. How did I miss them for all these years? I even bought two low maintenance houseplants yesterday. Never in my life have I owned a houseplant. Now I wonder how I lived so long without them.
There was a whole flock of goldfinches at my feeder up North--beautiful small birds with bright yellow bodies and black wings. I sat and watched them like a movie, grinning like a fool. And there were chickadees, and nuthatches, and tufted titmice, and house wrens--like the one who used to live in a little box on my grandmother's clothesline pole. She called it "Jenny Wren." Chipmunks and mourning doves chased each other beneath the feeder, picking up the fallen seeds. The world is a place of many wonders. But it takes us so long, so, so very long to have our eyes opened to many of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment