In 1954, when I was 5 years old, I huddled alone with my mother as hurricane Carol raged around us. We were in a small, rickety fisherman’s shack on the shore of a large lake in New England. I’ve been going back to that lake almost yearly ever since. Over 70 years.
I grew up there, learning about fish, boats and birds as well as clams and crayfish. Last week, at the lake, I experienced two things for the first time in my life. Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?
The first discovery was because of technology — a new app on my cellphone. Merlin Bird ID.
I always knew there are lots of birds in the woods by that lake, but I never paid attention to identifying them or counting how many varieties. I knew a robin or a crow or a cardinal when I saw one. Until last week, I never knew what I was missing.
This Merlin app listens to and records the surrounding bird sounds and then identifies them all. My jaw dropped when I saw the list of over 20 different birds singing away nearby: red-shouldered hawk, red-tailed hawk, short-billed dowitcher, blue-headed vireo, purple finch, red-winged blackbird, bank swallow, rock pigeon, common raven, northern cardinal, American crow, American robin, chimney swift, gray catbird, northern mockingbird, song sparrow, American goldfinch, Carolina wren, red-eyed vireo, tufted titmouse and ruby-throated hummingbird. I’ve gone through my whole life not being aware of and not appreciating the birds in that neighborhood. Thank you, tech, for opening that door for me.
As I become more aware while I age, I’ve been noticing things that I’ve just taken for granted my whole life. Like when I’m a passenger in a car, not the driver, and I see things for the first time that I’ve driven by thousands of times.
The second discovery last week was because of me not paying attention. I ran out of gas in our small boat out in the middle of the lake. As I heard the engine start to sputter, I knew exactly what it was, and I was knee-jerk pissed off. I castigated myself. For over 70 years, I’ve hopped in and out of small boats with outboard motors, headed off for a nice ride and I’d never run out of gas before. First time for everything! Maybe it was the new gas tank with a new gas gauge that I misread?
And then, pretty quickly, my attitude changed. I chuckled to myself. I saw my beautiful surroundings. I wasn’t in any hurry. I had no meetings to get to, and everything else could just wait. I saw this as a new experience to be appreciated.
And I did appreciate it! And I appreciated the more than a mile that I had to row home. I found myself appreciating the wind blowing in the exact direction that I wanted to go. I may have felt differently if I’d had to row against the current. Oh, and I was appreciating the two oars as well.
Yes, there is loss and change as we age and there is opportunity to appreciate so many ‘new’ things.