Coming Down Off The Pileated High

I felt exceptionally happy and excited for days after my experience with the pileated woodpecker deep in the woods. It was almost as if I had had a spiritual experience.

At the same time, the rest of life seemed especially anti-climactic, almost dull. How does one come down off a high like that? That afternoon when I finished work (another twelve hour day so I didn't get home until after 4 pm), I went and swam two miles in the local pool by myself. The silence of the water and the monotony of stroke stroke stroke stroke, flip, stroke stroke stroke stroke, flip, counting laps in my head the whole time, was soothing but the fire in my heart made me swim harder and longer than usual.

That night I sat at the computer and stayed up past my regular bedtime typing up my blog entry and thinking over the day. I was so wired that I drank a third of a bottle of Tej, Ethiopian honey wine, in an effort to relax and wind down before bed.

I did notice right before going to bed that there was perhaps a pileated calling outside my advisor's window. I found this hard to believe, more likely I was confusing a pileated with a flicker's call as the two are quite similar and differ to my ear mainly in the length of the call. I asked my advisor and he said he believed he had heard a pileated calling in the neighborhood all summer! I wonder why I hadn't noticed or seen this bird before!

Work the next day held little excitement for me. We were at the site that encompasses our house, so I knew there was a miniscule chance we would catch the pileated I had heard the night before, but even if we did it would not be as exciting for me as the first time or my experience in the woods the day before, for the site including our house is definitely urban.

We didn't catch the pileated, but a neighbor and avid birder stopped by and when I questioned him he related that it was indeed a pileated calling in the neighborhood and he had in fact seen it on several occasions, so neither my advisor or I were imagining that distinctive call.

We did catch my first yellow shafted flicker, a beautiful specimen, and also a rather large member of the woodpecker family, but nowhere near as gigantic as a pileated. In California, the flickers are red shafted, and I was very taken by the contrast between the red on this female's head and the bright yellow on her wings and tail. Striking. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera to take any pictures.

As soon as work was finished I boarded my train for Boston, finally feeling all the stress of the week lift as I sat back in my seat and the train pulled out of the station. The trip was very scenic and a mini-geography lesson as well since we made a bunch of local stops. I was so tired getting up so early all week that I promptly fell asleep and did not wake up until we were past Wilmington, Delaware. I did get to see New Jersey, New York and New York City (my first time in Penn Station even though I did not get out), Connecticut, Rhode Island and finally Boston. There were lots of views of wetlands out the window and I saw an artificial nest for an osprey with an osprey on it as well as several great egrets, some-- surprisingly for me-- in the very urban area bordering New York city, in the sludge amid tractors and pipes.

I slept well Thursday night at my aunt N and T's house in Quincy with Teddy (who I dubbed Teddy Roosevelt), their new five week old kitten that they rescued from an acquaintance who was going to dump the whole underaged litter at the shelter. I had a very strange dream about work from which I half-awoke convinced I was holding a hatch year robin in the bander's grip. I couldn't figure out how a robin had gotten into my bedroom since there was still a screen on the window. I opened my eyes to look and see if it was real only to discover a bit ashamedly that I was holding the tiny, robin-sized kitten in my hand in a birder's grip!!!

Friday was a day to relax. I laid around the house and read then went to the beach with N and T and tried to do a long run barefoot in the water. I remembered how tough it was to run with the water halfway up my calves from all the training runs I did on the Hull beach way back in high school, but my feet must be more tender now because the sand proved to be too abrasive and I had to cut my run short because the soles of my feet were bleeding (I learned my lesson about running too much on beaches in Tel Aviv when I was 18 and ran so much in one single run on a beach there that the soles of my feet were completely raw and had to be bandaged daily for two weeks! So when I felt my feet stinging a little and saw blood I stopped immediately this time because with my job of hiking around to nest search and check nets, I can't afford to tear up my feet like that). I was still happy to have gotten in the run and enjoyed feeling the sand under my bare feet.

I've always loved running on the beach and being back at Hull after all these years made me reminisce about running on that same beach in high school when I trained there for cross country during my summer vacations at my grandparents (hard to believe that was really half a lifetime ago!). I remember running interval workouts on the beach, estimating the distances based on my times, pushing myself so hard I thought I would collapse and then submerging myself in the ocean afterwards. I loved the way my body responded when I pushed my limits. I was as lean as a gazelle in high school (only 80 or so pounds) and running hard seemed to be what my body was meant to do. Back then my favorite movie was "Chariots of Fire," in part because I learned to play some of the music for it on my clarinet but mostly because of all the scenes of the team running on the beach in England, which I found very inspiring. And also because of the runners' passion for their ideals-- I particularly admired the hot headed Jewish runner, Harold Abrahams, who was fighting anti-Semitism. It makes the movie that much more poignant that it is based on a true story.

After my run, I got to briefly see my Aunt L and Uncle G, who were vacationing in Hull at my grandparent's old house, which they have beautifully renovated, leaving the most precious part of the whole house, the old wooden floors that are irreplaceable with their tightly patterned old wood grain, intact. I showed my Aunt L my blog, which she seemed interested in, and when she looked at the top post, on the pileated, she exclaimed, "You were talking about wanting to see one with me at the wedding-- I'm so glad you did get to see one!" Yes, I had been dreaming of pileateds and talking about my desire to see one all summer. You see, my Aunt L and Uncle G are lucky enough to live in a pristine enough neighborhood with old growth, big trees necessary to support a population of pileated so they see them quite frequently.

It's a good summer when there are two weekends that I get to see all three of my aunts-- K, N and L. (The first time was at my sister's wedding, the second time was this weekend). I'm really enjoying my stint on the East coast, getting to see more of my small family and old friends.

That evening we didn't try to see fireworks because of the cloudy weather. Instead, on the way back from the beach we stopped by the Hingham lobster pound and picked up some of their much praised fried breaded clams as well as steamers and lobsters to cook at home. My Aunt N can really cook. The clams were delicious. I also enjoyed drinking the clam juice from the pot, it was a refreshingly rehydrating broth after my run on the beach. The lobsters were mouth-wateringly good. It's been years since I've had lobster, but it is my goal to have it at least once more this summer before I head back to California.

N and T have a very cool moveable fire pit, so after dinner we sat outside drinking Cosmopolitans (my first sampling of this drink) and toasting marshmellows over the fire, talking. It was the perfect ending to a lazy day. Peaceful.

Saturday was time for another run on the beach, this time in shoes. I made it all the way from one end of the beach to the other and back, something I don't remember ever doing as a teenager when I ran there (I might be much slower now than in high school, but a small consolation is that I think my endurance is perhaps even better now). It was much, much easier running in shoes, sadly, as I like the sensuousness of the sand under my feet and I can't run in the water and feel the cold spray splashing my thighs when I have on shoes. Even though it was 67 degrees and drizzling by the end of my run, I got in the water for ten minutes and just floated. There wasn't anyone else in the water, so I didn't go out far. The small waves broke over my head and I drifted in and back with their undulating movement.

The rest of my weekend was dinner in Sturbridge with N, T and Aunt K, followed by an overnight stay in Connecticut and a few hours stopover in New York city with my friend NY on Sunday (where I learned such things as Times Squares is not really a square-- then again, neither is Harvard Square in Boston, rather confusing if you ask me!).

This morning it was back to work, getting up at 3 am. We're at urban sites all week so there aren't any thrilling new birds to look forward to. Instead, what I am focusing on is the upcoming visit on Wednesday from my old co-worker, roommate, running partner, pesco-vegetarian cooking partner and dear friend, who I will call Fool on this blog (because he would often greet me in the driveway with, "Yo fool, where ya going?" or "What up, fool?" He is also known to say things like, "I need to micturate" and "Watch the incision for dehiscince"-- yes, he's the only person I know who speaks half in Ebonics and half in medical jargon, but this playfulness with language is one of many unique things I really like about him). He has a heart of gold and is one of the best emergency doctors I have ever worked with. Wednesday will be a night on the town, and I plan to show him the best time possible. Watch out DC!