The Birds Are Gathering
I observed a group of blackbirds on my lawn this morning. It's a sleepy Sunday in August morning, past the ides of the month, and the timing is perfect. There are two times each year that my thoughts reach for my favorite book, OK three times, when I harken* to analogies of The Wind In The Willows.
It's late summer and the birds are gathering to begin their pre-migration chattering. But in the spirit of all things good and all things healthy, I'll also name it the time of year When Rat Goes Mad.
Mad. Yes. Insane. Don't worry, it's only temporary. But he hears the siren song of travel, of warm ports, and of grain filled ships. He sees visions of a life that could be and he enters it as if in a daze. He nearly leaves--his tiny, well-fitted, pleasant and perfect water rat home!
But he doesn't. And Moley brings him back to reality with an inquiry, 'why don't you get back to writing some poetry?' and Rat's sanity returns.
I just watched a video yesterday that admonished that we should be just as fascinated with, OK with, and speak publicly about mental health as we do about physical health. I agree. Rat went temporarily mad in the last baking moment of summer-- when we tire of summer. There is a reason for the phrase 'endless summer.'
I'm not in the mood to go mad this year. Instead, whenever I hear a chickadee now, I am reminded that the chickadees are the 'boarders who are staying, en pension' (Chapter Wayfarers All, second paragraph) and I silently thank them for being here on the coldest of days ahead-- when all the world will be frozen below freezing and the chickadees will hop around the bare branches that can't remember green, or growth, or warmth. Everything will be white, gray, or brown. Finding a seed here and there, the chickadees will tell their story of the happiness of being a family on the crystal clear cold days. And Rat will be tucked in his hole, recounting stories with Moley by the warmth of a fire.
*Harken, I'm told is an archaic word. Poppycock! I use it all the time. It means, to me, 'to listen to an outloud call'. The other 2 times I harken to the Wind In The Willows is very early spring, when Mole gives up whitewashing (a generally good idea no matter the time of year) and when Rat & Mole hole up for the winter (definitely Christmas and after) - doing only winter things like storytelling, eating, sleeping, and staying warm.
"Nature’s Grand Hotel has its Season, like the others. As the guests one by one pack, pay, and depart, and the seats at the table-d’hôte shrink pitifully at each succeeding meal; as suites of rooms are closed,carpets taken up, and waiters sent away; those boarders who are staying on, en pension, until the next year’s full reopening, cannot help being somewhat affected by all these flittings and farewells, this eager discussion of plans, routes, and fresh quarters, this daily shrinkage in the stream of comradeship. One gets unsettled, depressed, and inclined to be querulous. Why this craving for change? Why not stay on quietly here, like us, and be jolly? You don’t know this hotel out of the season, and what fun we have among ourselves, we fellows who remain and see the whole interesting year out. All very true, no doubt, the others always reply; we quite envy you — and some other year perhaps — but just now we have engagements — and there’s the bus at the door — our time is up! So they depart, with a smile and a nod, and we
miss them, and feel resentful. The Rat was a self-sufficing sort of animal, rooted to the land, and, whoever went, he stayed; still, he could not help noticing what was in the air, and feeling some of its influence in his bones." ~ The Wind In The Willows, chapter Wayfarers All.
https://www.pdfdrive.com/the-wind-in-the-willows-oxford-worlds-classics-e186211936.html