It’s not always the obvious that is the source of danger for the birds. On Craigleith, famous for its puffin colony of ten thousand breeding pairs, the population of what is undeniably the cutest and most comedic of all seabirds fell in a few short years by 90 per cent because of tree mallows, giant invasive plants whose roots make it impossible for the birds to dig the burrows where they incubate their eggs and raise their young. Ever since the calamitous fall in numbers, volunteers have been working to eradicate the mallows. In spite of the efforts of more than a thousand supporters of the puffins, the mallows persist, though their numbers have been reduced sufficiently to allow the puffins to start rebuilding their colonies. They’re a welcome sight; it would be a hard heart that didn’t feel a rise in its spirit at the sight of a puffin.
Book Review in Washington Post by Laurie Hertzel: The perfect little book to get you through winter’s doldrums. In “Winter: The Story of the Season,” the prolific mystery writer Val McDermid offers a warm look at a dark time.
Photo: Chris S via Pexels. Puffin Standing on Ground with Beak Open. Iceland, 2024.
A couple of months ago I went back to my alma mater in Colorado. They gave me a little temporary office, and as I went upstairs I thought, Oh, my God, I used to live here. The room next to the room they gave me was my bedroom from a fraught year in my college experience. It was the weirdest thing, because that guy that I was was so ambitious and stupid, so not in touch with how one went about having a writing life. But he was pretty earnest. There was something very wild about being almost 70 and standing there and going, OK, so what that kid wanted to do, you kind of did it. I can’t quite describe it. Also, I started late. The first book didn’t come out till I was 38, so I feel like I’m racing to do really good work in whatever time is left. But in that early time, one of the things that was so beautiful was that my stupid dreams of being a prodigy were obviously not going to happen. So for the first time it was like, All right, what if you don’t have any writing career? What if you’re just, hopefully, a good father and husband? And in that space I found that there was plenty to live for. I’d always secretly thought I was kind of shallow, that I was all ambition. And to find out that shorn of that, I still liked being alive and still felt a lot of happiness? That was very sweet.
WAIT FOR IT! Time Lapse Video from Twilight to Sunrise. 1 hour in 22 seconds, 6:20 am to 7:20 am. 23° F, feels like 16° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.
Don’t miss the photos from this morning’s walk here.
Sitting on that height, facing the brightening light, this is what I understood, not as a proposition of words, but as if it had taken full occupancy of my mind in a moment, as an image might occupy it, or a mathematical proof. Afterwards, when I translated what I had experienced, what I wrote had none of the force of what had happened. A long life and a short life are the same, because the present is the only life we have – the same for everyone. It was like a description of music. As the light poured into my eyes, exciting their nerves, causing reactions in the brain, the reactions gave rise to something beyond any contentment – a submission, blissful. The moment of the present becomes instantly the past, I wrote. The present was almost-nothing; I was almost-nothing – a momentary arrangement of energy. And when the time came for the arrangement of energy that went by my name to collapse, and become a different arrangement, barely anything would be changed. A slight readjustment of a few lives, for a while. Some after-life in the memory of a small number of people, for some of whom I was already nothing but a memory. Into the great indifference, I wrote, but the words caused a chill, a shiver, which I had not experienced in those minutes at the ruins. Everything is becoming – nothing rests, I added, on the next line. A less discomfiting formulation. At the ruins, I witnessed transition in everything: the slow movement of the clouds, the slower rising of the sun, the agitation of the sea. I witnessed it and felt it: with each breath, each heartbeat, I was changing, a changing thing among other things that were changing. More: as I gazed at that uncertain horizon, across the glowing water and the glowing leaves, the elements of the scene lost their separation. All categories and names were lost in the totality of it, dissolved in the light. This was how the episode achieved its climax, in an overwhelming acceptance. An Amen of sorts. That was what I wrote. ‘Ataraxia’ is a word I might have used, had it been at my disposal then.
An awareness of discomfort brought me back to myself – I had to stand up. One leg had become numb. True contemplatives are made of tougher stuff, I was soon telling myself, on the descent. As I picked my way down the crumbling path, I was starting to make phrases. A long life and a short life are the same was composed before I reached the car. As was Life – the intermission. And the ten-minute mystic. There has been nothing like it since. Not even ten minutes.
Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.
