Blog #7

I had some guests with me on my most recent pond visit who go by the names of Oscar and Simon.  They're two wonderful, imaginative boys that I nanny in Pittsburgh and on a day off of school, we went to the Schenley pond for a picnic. While walking down the pathway, I shared with them some of the thoughts that I have had on previous blog expeditions about this area of the park.  We talked about vining plants, about how I almost fell through the ice in the section at a clearing (naturally they started to run for that clearing and I had to pull them back fast), I told them about some of the plants I had learned were around us and about the large tree fallen during the wind storm. As soon as we came across the remains of the great trunk, we went for a climbing expedition.  Simon was first to clamber up the large, leaning trunk that started down in a bit of a mucky area and rose up against a hill. Oscar followed but then ran back to grab my phone and take a picture at the exposed area of the tree- the same thing that interested me when I first found it.  Simon climbed a little too far and became too scared to come back, so I went up to steady him and we slid down the trunk slowly together.

When we got to the big bean of Schenley pond we saw that the ducks were back.  I don't know that I've ever had enough interaction with a specific small body of water to see ducks there in one season, gone in the next, and then to also be there for when they return.  There was no pond or river around me growing up that I had that sort of relationship to, so I have never before experienced the kinship you can feel with a flock of birds that you feel like you know.  The same sort of warm surge of affection felt when seeing a family member or friend after awhile swelled in my chest. They're back! The ducks! My duck friends are back, woo hoo! We fed them crusts of our sandwiches, aiming as best we could at each one to make sure we rationed their morsels evenly among them.

In addition to the ducks there, about six geese were lurking at the other end of the pond. I say lurking because, although I find geese to be majestic and beautiful in their breadth and coloring, the artful S of their neck like a swan but with a different kind of elegance, I'm a little wary.  When I was growing up, my dad came home from the golf course one day after having been bitten by a goose and it's stuck in my mind that they can be aggressive when provoked.  I imagine this is true with most animals, and geese on a golf course are certainly encountering a different provocation than those at the pond, but still, I was wary being with the kids.  They saw us feeding the ducks and pushed their way over in the water faster than I anticipated until suddenly they were right up front.  I had Oscar and Simon stop feeding the birds for a little while, but the geese were smart; they knew what we had in our paper bags. One brave bird stretched his neck far over to my feet and began pecking around them until I moved up on the steps at the edge of the pond.  This goose was not backing down, though, and began to slowly waddle, webbed foot by webbed foot, up the pond steps.  Crumbling what was left of my sandwich, I threw the pieces out far into the pond and had the kids walk around the edge to a new section to avoid any two bump geese bites and tears.

While the kids were walking away and I was packing up the lunches, a really marvelous thing happened. In the span of just a couple seconds, Oscar and Simon came around from behind the marshy cat tail growth in the crook of one side of the pond...with a hawk following them.  I wasn't quick enough with my camera to capture it, but this beautiful, tawny and caramel colored red-tailed hawk was walking slowly with boys- the three of them seemingly on a calm stroll together in the park and me, just an on looker.  Their bright, wide eyes and huge smiles would have betrayed them to any real on looker, though, and they were just as awed as I was to have this gorgeous bird so calm and present among us. It walked towards me with them for a few seconds before pushing off with a gentle bend of it's body, splaying its great wings in the air to soar over the water and land in a tree on the other end of the pond.  After a moment of nearly pure silence watching it glide, the boys immediately burst into a fit of excited shrieks and exclamations and we all raced around what seemed like a much larger pond to get to the tree where it landed.  It sat there still when we arrived, now pretending it never walked among us and happily perched on a large branch. Oscar took a few great pictures of the bird and actually helped me identify what kind of hawk it was, being the avid nature lover he already is.

After spending a decent amount of time hoping the hawk would come back down to us, we decided to try and hike up a huge, mountainous hill that lay on that side of the pond. The ground was wet and soft, though, from recent winter weather, and after a few slides and muddied hands, we decided another day would be better for that.  We completed the full circle back around to where we had left our lunches, a part of the path that I had yet to explore very often.  We found a buried fire hydrant at the base of the hill, some smooth limestone chips in shades of various greenish greys, and I found my new favorite tree.  The photo cannot possibly do it justice, but I swear it's magical.  When I saw it off to my right, I felt myself take a sudden gasp of breath and stood entranced before this tree as though the air around it was forcefield that stilled you in your step.  It's hard to describe how it appeared to me or the feeling it caused.  The trunk was a smooth, luminous grey, with shades of a dusty purple and almost glittering silver around it.  When I was standing there, the effect of the coloring in the easy, grey daylight was almost like the swirl inside those rubber balls with milky silver fluid in them. It wasn't the iridescent rainbows of bubbles or oil, but a pearly shimmer, like certain bowling balls or these toy balls I found a picture of. Oscar and Simon breezed by me and called after to have me come look at something by the bridge with them, but I literally felt immobilized, like there was some energy being emitted from this tree that I either needed to feel or draw in. I can't explain it very well without sounding a little cheesy.  But it was a deep connection, like a soul connection, the kind that grabs something between your ribs and holds fast and long.

I stood for a long while, trying to figure out why it had this effect on me and what it meant I should do. In the end I decided I need to keep returning to it and let it continue to move me in this way, that something greater will come than this one feeling, this one magnetization, and that I won't be able to know what that will be until it reveals itself to me.