Archived Thoughts for 05/21/06

Thoughts of a Rural Woman

Talking to Tomorrow
by The Editor, Rebecca Brown

How to tell time in the country:
One Hummingbird
two cloudless warm days
three South American pigeons
four Elderberry buds & five black lambs.

Hearing the buzz of an incoming Hummingbird scout, I scurry around looking for the feeders I'd stashed last August when I'd noticed they'd all left: dads, moms & youngsters. What a mob I had toward the end -- most nights, I was making nectar as they'd sucked the feeders dry. In years past, after they were cleaned & dried, I'd squirrel them away for next March. It became a joke, between my beloved & I, that upon not finding the stash the following Spring, I'd rush out to buy more, only to have the old ones turn up a while later. Last time I hung the red & yellow feeders on my drying line in Poppa's cabin, at eye level!

Baseball player: “What time is it?”
Yogi Berra,“You mean now?”

Do two days in a row of cloudless warming sun make a Spring? What with hail & rain, snow & wind, this Spring's been a blustery one, reminding us of our first year out here when Poppa's ancient pickup truck, Old Blue, sank to her axles in mud & we labored to build our cabins, taking refuge, when hail pelted us, under the conifer canopy.

“The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.” -- C. S. Lewis.

Three South American Bandtail Pigeons one day became a flock, swooping down upon the feed I put out for the Squirrels, Chipmunks, Steller's Blue Jays & all the flittery little things that move so fast I can't tell them apart. These giants with their elegant white collars & pristine grey feathers, watch me from the trees above, & leave splats as thank yous. The only birds that do!

“Time is a companion that goes with us on a journey. It reminds us to cherish each moment, because it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we have lived.” Captain Jean-Luc Picard in the film Star Trek: Generations.

Four Elderberry buds -- there is no shrub quite as elegant, quite as delightful as these. They arc over like Roman, Christian or Muslim arches, each brown stalk knuckled like bamboo, out of which bud two tufts of Spring green leaves. & their blossoms exude a heady parfum!

“Lost, yesterday, somewhere between Sunrise and Sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever.” -- Horace Mann.

Five black lambs -- the homestead at the start of the road, which was deeded over to the State upon the death of the last family member, has been home to a small flock of sheep. Year by year, we watch them multiply, & where there was one black lamb for every ten white ones, now there are five.

& then my brother calls from New Zealand & there I am, talking to tomorrow. It's the oddest sensation. Whereas I'm sitting down to my Sunday dinner, he's wrapping up a hectic Monday.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...” -- Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities.

&, doddering dowager that I am, I yell into the handset, as I witnessed my Mater doing fifty years before, when she talked to her sisters in Portugal or her other sons away at university or the military. It reminds me of when my youngest bro(the one in New Zealand who's 3 years older than me) strung a couple of tin cans together, leapt up the stairs to his bedroom & we yelled silly things to each other. I don't have a scientific bone in my bod, & have no idea if our voices carried through that string.

“I've been on a calendar but I have never been on time.” -- Marilyn Monroe.

Still, it's the oddest sensation talking to tomorrow. When Alice calls me, she's my oldest & best chum from my school years, I can hardly wrap my brain around the fact that she's “back” in the Old Country & already in tomorrow, & I'm on the edge of America, still in today!

“If there must be trouble let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.” -- Thomas Paine.

One of my enduring dreams has been to cruise over both the equator & the international date line. I'd like to make sure that, unlike our atlases & globes, there isn't a line drawn across the oceans. Down all the centuries of seafaring, we've celebrated that crossing -- when the battle cruiser, carrying the Royal Family, crossed the equator on its voyage to South Africa after the end of WWII, the young Princesses Elizabeth & Margaret were subjected to a cleaned-up version of the usually all-male ribaldry, while their parents looked on. I know 'cause I saw it on the black & white newsreels. It looked like a lot of fun.

“There's plenty of time to win this game...” -- Sir Francis Drake said in 1588 upon sighting the Spanish Armada coming up the English Channel.

For everything there is a season,
& a time for every matter under heaven:
A time to be born, & a time to die;
A time to plant, & a time to harvest;
A time to kill, & a time to heal;
A time to break down, & a time to build up;
A time to weep, & a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, & a time to dance;
A time to embrace, & a time to refrain;
A time to seek, & a time to lose;
A time to keep, & a time to throw away;
A time to tear, & a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, & a time to speak;
A time to love, & a time to hate,
A time for war, & a time for peace. -- Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Unless you're talking to tomorrow.

Rebecca