November 6, 2007
bustle in my hedgerow
I’m hesitant to jinx it, but I’m doing sitting practice in the morning more regularly than I have for a really long time. I have no idea why I’m suddenly doing it after literally years of browbeating myself for not doing it, but so far so good.
Just as the starting bell struck this morning, I became aware of a lot of movement just outside my window. My house backs up onto a parking lot used by the businesses next door (and not by me), so I’m used to a good deal of activity happening mere feet away from me even when I’m in, say, my own bedroom: tradespeople tromping around, car doors slamming, inventory and trash being carted in and out.
What I was hearing definitely wasn’t human, though. Sometimes it’s hard to tell, especially when a nocturnal animal is making roughly the same creeping progress through your dead leaves that a psychotic killer would if he were intent on ratcheting you up to maximum terror before offing you, but in this case it was obviously the frenetic, random-seeming movement of an animal. It sounded like a big one, based on how many leaves were moving at once.
If you’ve never tried to meditate, you will not be impressed by this at all: I didn’t get up to look. I wanted to, believe me, especially since a couple of nights ago I had confronted what looked like two 30-pound raccoons in that same back lot and was very curious to see if for some reason they were out during the day. (Raccoons are the worst to confront, because they’re not scared of you. They sort of make a token gesture of retreat and then look back at you like what’s your fucking problem? At which point you realize that you really didn’t have a Plan B and just sort of assumed that your species status would carry the day. It doesn’t.)
Being proud of not getting up and going to the window would run somewhat counter to why I want to meditate in the first place. But it might at least suggest some progress being made, since I can very easily remember a time when I would have not only gotten up but fully justified it. (”Well, I have an obligation to see what’s going on back there! Harrumph!”)
Instead I sat for the full thirty minutes, completely distracted the whole time, and only got up and looked when I was done.
It was grackles. A lot of them.
Speaking of which, I think we need a specific word for a group of grackles, so I’m opening the floor to nominations. Mine are screed, plunder, and insurgency.
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