A Mid-Winter Fantasy – The Bald Eagles

In honor of mid-winter, today’s blog will be different – a fantasy story just for fun. Next week will be time enough to continue down the path to aging gracefully.  Today it seems that a little make-believe might be in order.  Enjoy! 

The Bald Eagles

When I bought the used 35 mm Nikon at the shop on NW Market Street, I felt a strange sense of elation.  I had hungered for this camera  – a classic single lens reflex – since 1973 when I was almost too poor to manage rent let alone an expensive camera.  Over the years, my small digital cameras and, more recently, my iPhone didn’t quite meet the optical standards I wanted.  The mystery of taking, waiting, and finally experiencing a true image was lost for me.  I wanted the capability that only a real camera, with real film can give.  Just holding the black instrument in my hand made my heart skip a beat.

I walked back to my car and placed the camera carefully on the back seat.  I checked my voice mail and calendar.  I didn’t need to be anywhere at all.  The day was mine.  I pulled out of the small parking space.  The sky was so blue it almost hurt my eyes.  There are few days in the Pacific Northwest, especially in February, when blue skies are visible, let alone brilliant.  After endless weeks of cold, wet, grey skies, I needed a mid-winter break.  In a few minutes, I merged onto I-5 traveling north from the city.  Soon I was cruising at 70 mph towards the Skagit River estuary – home of bald eagles and tulip festivals.  It was too early for tulips but exactly right for eagles.

As I approached Exit 221, I slowed and looked up at the azure sky.  It was just after 11 o’clock in the morning and I was ready for a day of it.  I passed through the small town of Conway and stopped at Rexville Grocery for a latte and a smoked turkey sandwich.  I wasn’t hungry yet but I didn’t want to worry about lunch when I was fully invested in photographing the eagles.  I told her to throw in a bag of Tim’s Cascade Chips.  It felt like a holiday and a treat seemed right.

I turned back onto the Fir Island Road and slowed near the landing at the edge of the estuary.  The road was muddy.  Like a true Northwesterner, I had on waterproof boots.  My Gore-Tex jacket was in the back seat, sitting helpfully beside the day’s prize. 

It is hard to remember how the next six hours passed.  One minute I was walking in anticipation down the muddy trail with the sun high over head.  The next minute I was shooting the final flight of a magnificent eagle reflected against the rosy hue of the setting sun.  My sandwich sat neglected back in the parking lot.  The thought of food never entered my mind.  I was like a person possessed.  I didn’t know how many shots I took.  My pockets were crammed with film canisters.  I had changed film so many times I lost count. 

I had never seen so many nor such glorious eagles.  They sat on the tops of bare trees; in the dark green of majestic firs; on the black basalt rocks along the river’s edge; on the gravel bars that marked the tidal excursion.  They flew in pairs and alone across the estuary, owning the space as only ancient monarchs can.  Their white heads and tails shone like silver in the sunlight.  Their wingspans filled the air, blocking all other thoughts from my mind.  Perhaps I thought, the eagles are giving me a gift – a perfect day of perfect shots. 

As the final wisps of red light fell below the horizon I hurried, chilled now, back to my car.  I lay the camera carefully on the back seat and emptied my pockets of film canisters.  There were eight – each a finished roll of 36 shots and one more in the camera.  Altogether I would surely have one or two perfect shots – opportunities to finally have witness of how I see art in nature.  I got into the driver’s seat and devoured the sandwich and chips, suddenly starved.  I turned the engine on and drove back to the freeway, remembering every precious shot as I drove south.

The next day I took my film to be developed.  I asked the man at the counter for proofs as quickly as possible. 

“No problem” he said.  “We don’t get much call for developing 35 mm these days.  It will be our pleasure.  They will be ready on Thursday.”

The two days dragged endlessly.  I could think of nothing else but the eagles in the sky.  I could see them in front of me: the clarity of their beaks, the cruelty of their talons.  I wanted to hold the pictures in my hand.  I arrived at the shop early Thursday morning.  I couldn’t wait to open the envelope.  I pulled the thin strips of paper from inside and spread them on the counter. 

I looked at the first one.  It showed a lush green tree.  A green papagayo – a common Amazon parrot – sat looking out at me from a low branch.  Confused I looked at the next and then the next.  Each picture was in a tropical jungle, somewhere I had never been.  Most of the birds were elegant green parrots, mostly in pairs.  Several of the strips showed Scarlet Macaws and one showed a magnificent looking Toucan sitting on a dead tree branch above a silt-filled river.  The parrots sat in many positions, on mudflats, on trees in full bloom, on weedy floating islands.  They looked warm, their feathers were rich and colorful, and their expressions greeting me as if to say “Aren’t you happy to be warm?”  The sky in the photographs was a brilliant blue but it was not the Skagit sky.  It was the equatorial sky.

“These are not my pictures,” I said.  “You have made a mistake.”

“No mistake,” the man said.  “These are yours.  We don’t get many films to develop these days.  Your order was the only one this week.”

I left the store and walked slowly down the street, holding the strange pictures in my hand.  Could these pictures be the eagles’ fantasy I wondered.  Perhaps this is their real gift to me.  Their mid-winter fantasy frozen forever in 35 mm film.  I have saved the pictures all these years but I will never know how they came to be.

Retirement 101: Getting down to business

In 2005, when my second child left home for college, I took a yearlong certificate course in writing at the University of Washington.  I had always longed to be a writer despite the fact that my day job was as an environmental engineer.  I wanted to write fiction and non-fiction stories that went well beyond the technical writing that I did as an engineer.  Finally I thought, with my kids grown up, I might have time to begin some writing.  In my mind’s eye I saw a future “retirement” career as a writer.  At the end of the course, one of the women in my class asked me if I wanted to join a writing group.

In January 2006 – eight years ago – I joined six other women one Tuesday evening.  We formed a writing group.  While all of us wrote, at that time, none of us defined ourselves as writers.  As time passed by we bonded together and experimented with many different formats for our bi-monthly meetings.  We all published articles, we took workshops, attended conferences, wrote separately and together, critiqued each others pieces and our writing improved.  Our membership morphed and our lives changed.  Several of us lost parents, some lost partners, grandchildren were born, we were challenged by medical conditions and we retired from the professions we had trained for as younger adults. 

Over the years, three of our original members left the group – two when their priorities changed and one when she and her husband moved to Mexico.  Three of the original group stayed together.  Somewhere in there another woman joined us.  We’ve had a few other short-term members but the core of the group is the original three plus one.  We still meet twice a month -- although I of course cannot attend when I am in Brazil.  But when I am in Brazil and when any of us travel, we keep in touch via the wonders of the Internet.

The power of the group and the strength of the bonds we have formed are a tribute how important it is to have colleagues – perhaps especially when you are retired and starting a new endeavor. Three members of my group – all of us now retired from our prior careers, primarily define ourselves as writers.  The fourth member sees her writing as a priority but she has taken on new exciting responsibilities as a teacher of English as a second language.  These responsibilities limit her writing time but she is still a very active member of the group.  I take the time to explain this background since, as a retiree, I am struggling with organizing my days and weeks into a routine that allows me to be a productive writer. Being part of my writing group gives me support and help during this transition.

Perhaps you might think that such a transition is relatively easy.  What’s the problem?  Why am I having any difficulties transitioning?  I’m finally free to do what I want, when I want.  It turns out the transition from a full time career to the more solitary pursuit of being a full time writer isn’t an easy one.  I know of course that the transition into retirement is difficult for many people. 

One of the phenomena that make my transition difficult is the curiosity of time.  We all have challenges with time.  Why isn’t it more stable?  Why does it seem that sometimes it races ahead of me and other times lags far behind?  There are days when I turn around and it is already 4 pm.  Who can start anything productive at 4 pm?  My natural instinct at this time of the afternoon is to put on my kettle and make a pot of tea.  Perhaps, I think, a cup of tea will bolster me through the early evening – infuse a little caffeine and a bit of lactose into my body and urge me to be productive.  Encourage me with a soothing lifelong routine.  Sometimes this works.  But sometimes I go for a walk or begin cooking dinner and put writing off to the next day.

On other days even sitting down and writing for an hour seems like an endless and difficult task.  Time passes too slowly.  This week I had a moment like that.  I needed help. I entered a Writer's Cramp contest.  That was a good choice.  This Writing.com contest gives you a scant 24 hours to write a 1000-word (or less) story on a posted subject.  The pressure was on.  I wrote like mad and came up with a decent story.  It was a great exercise in managing time and creativity.

Writing is a solitary pursuit and I am a gregarious person by nature.  I like to talk and socialize.  I like to joke around and listen to my friends' stories – sometimes it is their troblems – of course I mean their troubles and problems; sometimes it is their successes or adventures.  Often it is a mix of both.  And as a talker I like to tell my stories and share my troblems too.

But as a fledgling writer, I also need a big chunk of time each day to think, to write and to edit, research and explore whatever my writing demands.  Since I have defined myself as a writer – I find that my writing projects have already expanded well beyond what is reasonable to undertake in a given day, week or even over several months.  As in my professional career I need to prioritize.  I am learning how to do this.  It is a hard lesson since during the thirty some years I worked 8 or 9 hours every day I thought that retirement would bring buckets of time.  Well it has brought me lots more time but I still have to postpone some activities and transform or revise other activities to meet even my self-imposed deadlines. 

At my writing group meeting last week we discussed this dilemma.  While we did not solve it, I am clearly not alone in being challenged with time and expectations management!  One step at a time seems to be the adage.  It took me years to feel that I had my career as an engineer in control and even after thirty years I had many moments when there was too much going on.  Why did I expect this new life would be any different?  Perhaps I was naïve.  Either way I find that I am getting down to business with a little help from my friends.

It is more than a week since Seattle Seahawks won the Super Bowl.  The city is coming back down from its euphoria but I still have my flag on my front door.  Just seeing it there gives me a warm feeling.  The Seahawks brought our city together in a way that I have rarely experienced.  Twelfth man flags are still flying but we have incorporated this wonderful win into our cultural history.  Now, on Valentine’s Day, the weather is predictably wet with welcome moments of sun scattered here and there.  Of course in comparison to the rest of the country and even the rest of the world, where winter snow and freezing temperatures or drought and high heat dominate, Seattle remains temperate and very pleasant.  That's a good climate for a writer.  Better get down to business.

Happy Valentine's Day!