Startle Effect

Disturbing the rookery is a noisy affair. Maybe 100 crows taking to the air. Reading about the Corvid family I discover that my crows (The Three Mousekateers) do, in fact, know who I am. Of course they do, somebody else goes to the outhouse and they fly away. What I experience, alone, is not the same as what I experience when someone else is here. Everything is different. Everything. A simple walk, a quiet few hours reading, eating at the island, defending a comma; I'm not anti-social, I love conversation and watching people, but I do require copious quantities of private time. I enjoy spinning that internal monologue. Never know what tack I'll be on. I was studying the rigging on a clipper, using a magnifying glass, making a list, not complete, and I ended up with 110 named ropes. They built clippers in East Dennis, I need to research how they got the wood there, then towed the hulls to Boston for rigging. Boston was one of the rigging capitals of the world, which meant miles and miles of rope, so I got interested in the rope trade. And the sail trade, the large open rooms of sail-lofts north of Boston, the cotton trade. It's so easy to get distracted. How much belly in the mainsail? You see that same effect in schools of fish, blackbirds, even voles and groundhogs. The scattering. Certain fish and blackbirds do this so well it appears perfectly natural, which it is; that tired word, authentic. Talking with several friends recently, I realized that I get very good seafood locally. A small butcher shop makes a run once a week to the coast, and Kroger gets their delivery on Thursday. I'm on bear alert because I found a couple of destroyed stumps. This time of year grubs are a good meal. 38% protein. And I have to say, seeing a bear footprint in the mud gets your attention. I make a lot of noise, when I first go outside. It's good to be careful. I had to go down and get my mail, and I wanted to see B, so I went to town, got a few things and came back up the creek, lovely in spring dress. B was frustrated by a bad switch on a planer, and had a book for me. Essays on Cormac McCarthy. Ryan came over, and had a book for me; and I'd been to the library. I might have to take off tomorrow and read, postpone the spring-cleaning. The start of spring cleaning. Ryan asked what motivated me to write, he's a good singer/song-writer, so we talked about audience for a while. I have a target audience of about six, but they're important to me, and close readers, so it keeps me alert, but mostly, I told him, I just liked working with words, they're so much lighter than a twelve foot four-by-eight oak timber. If I never have to shoulder another it'll be too soon.