.

a child recently said to me,
there are big things in the
little things.



1. I was shopping in
a local market, fondling
vegetables as a preface
to dinner, when I spied
a row of potted herbs
bordering the broccoli;
I leaned closer to breathe
in fresh sage, but a gruff
voice said, "no, not like
that, like this!". his was
a dense Italian accent
with work-worn stubs
for fingers, black lines
under his nails, and as
he grasped, he rubbed.
I watched his thumb
drag hard against a
leaf and then lift it to
his nose with unexpected
precision. he breathed
deeply and repeated,
" ... like this".


2. Jenn: a trainer with the
blue-est blues I've ever seen.
her voice is sweet and soft
as if in direct conduit to her
soul, it embodies the very
source of light and hope.
she is the only one I know
who can speak the following
words with convincing
resonance and credibility;
she softly whispers them
into my ear with a warm
breath that lingers on my
skin just as I am about to
give in to fatigue. she taunts,
"push through the pain" ...
and so I do. Jenn, who
candidly admits to no one
in particular, "I was married
once ... and never again.".
Jenn with the ultra-short
baby-fine blond haircut
that frames her face so
severely it is best described
"just like a man's", and who
is always loosely clad in
black to hide her rock-hard
frame but who, nonetheless,
keeps an Ironman tattoo
clearly visible on her right
ankle. both soft and hard,
she is Anomalous Jenn, the
one I want to hate but
somehow can't because
her left brain meets my
far right at unexpected
junctions (even though
she always gets those
two hemispheres mixed
up and endearingly calls
herself 'analytical-right'),
her push to my pull never
fails to inspire something
more from me. with little
lilting words like, "listen
to your body when it speaks
to you"(because she knows
I never do) from anyone
else would just fall flat as
way-too-clichéd. but not
from her. not from Über Jenn.


3. there is a box unopened on
my dining room table. I study
the reflected light on its corners
as I walk around it each morning
with coffee in hand. day in, day
out, I stalk it as if I am doing
Grande Rounds but am somehow
not yet convinced that it presents
well. bill of sale still attached, my
new macintosh remains unopened.
I stare it down like a bad day at
the gym, and each successive
morning is like Ground Hog Day.
its presence insists on something
more from me, just like Jenn does,
or like a rare sighting of a snowy
owl perched motionless on an
urban lamppost at dusk. it is a
laptop with a learning curve that
I, so far, deny. my tiny mac book
pro looms large. but one day soon
I will wake up from my pc fog
and launch that paradigmatic shift
from pc to mac ... will set it in motion
like a stage one launch, when the
time is right. but until that time,
there it sits, taunting me like the
techno-phobic elephant-in-the-
room that I am. tattoo-bound
Jenn would conquer it swift and
sure, with 'not like that, like this',
she'd say "Push through the pain!"


4. the bay remains frozen, even
though every 6 foot snow drift
has melted off the streets in
the past few days. milder
temperatures bring many
early migrants to this
region that just happens
to rest under a major
migratory flyway.

dusk on the bay is witching hour
for all the resident waterfowl
who raise their heads in anxious
chatter at sunset, made nervous
by the day's diminishing light.
lack of snow means less night-vision
on the ice and some of these birds
(geese, swans and ducks included)
stretch their necks high to face
southward in unison, as if to
synchronize themselves for flight.
for those who remain on land
every foreign noise, including
a paper bag that slowly scratches
the ground, spooks them.

inevitably, all will head for open
water soon, and that is where they
will spend the night (to keep warm
and to stay safe from predators
who hunt on dark ice). this winter
has been particularly cold, and
there is less food for coyotes and
birds of prey (since small rodents
have burrowed deep under the
snow). instead, they stalk the
frozen bay at night where the
phrase 'like a sitting duck'
literally applies.

their exit unfolds in two stages;
first, small groups of birds take
flight; they flock to the ice near
shore where they reconfigure into
family groupings before launching
into stage two for open water. but
it is on their second launch from bay
to lake that a resident snowy owl
will track the weaker ones in hope
of catching a mid-flight dinner.
needless to say, this is the most
interesting time of day to watch
their social behaviours unravel.

I am standing amidst a huge flock
of geese and swans on the corner
of a pier by a nearby parking lot.
these particular birds know and
trust me, but our eyes are riveted
to the night sky. for the past few
nights, a hungry owl in-wait has
perched atop a corner lamppost
directly above them. but they are
never alarmed until it follows them
out onto the ice. stage two becomes
a dangerous leap of life-or-death.
although the snowy owl is not visible
tonight, ken sits in his car, window
wide, with a huge lens propped up
at the sky. an hour passes and then
suddenly, all the grounded birds lift
their necks in uniform agitation, and
noisily take off. the night sky becomes
riddled with wings heading south
towards the lake. honking their way
past stage one, something has alarmed
them. but what? nothing is visible.
Ken rushes from his car to the pier
with surprising stealth and speed,
a gargantuan camera cloaked in
camophlage on his arm. we stand
shoulder-to-shoulder, motionless,
looking upward into the night.
but nothing. no 6 foot wingspan
soaring sideways. most of the
birds have now cleared the
horizon and only distant
honking is audible. ken
reluctantly releases a deep
sigh. lack of snow on the
ice obscures the owl's night
vision (and also ours); perhaps
he is finding more rodents
rambling on land. whatever
the reason, ken recounts his
owl stories. standing there
by a frozen bay under the
warm glow of a February
streetlamp and with an
industrial line of flaming
furnaces facing us from
across the bay, their odd
reflections cast strange
flickerings on the ice as
he recounts his owl stories.

one includes a great grey owl
who perched in a tree a mere
foot away from him, one that
he describes as "rather dumb"
since it did not flinch as he clicked
away. we agree that the lack
of accessible food this winter
has led many owl species to
prey on other owls. boreals
eating tiny screech owls, etc.
"beautiful, vicious birds", I
say. but he just smiles. he'll
be back tomorrow at dusk (and
so will I), both of us in perpetual
awe of an elusive bird intelligence
that seems to surpass ours, their
avian embodiment of ancestral
memory far surpassing ours by
billions of years ('they were
here first' becomes my mantra).

and so, we share a wordless
thought that maintains profound
respect for these macrobirds
coupled with an incessant
insistence that they need to
be protected. their primordial
history is far greater than the
right-left one our human species
boasts about. and so, I step back
into my car, headlights and radio,
street signs and pavement all
launching me into the night,
my stage two, driving me back
to a dis-connected (sub)urbanity
that leads away from the wisdom
of these feathered skies at dusk ...
at least until tomorrow night.


in essence,
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 ≈ something big
(inside the small).