Jessica Weiss

While I’m visiting the states for a few weeks, lucky me gets to stay at my parents’ house in Maryland. What a treat. Today I woke up early and took my cup of coffee outside to the patio, where it was already sweltering hot before 8 am. As I sat, I watched and listened to the creature world awaken as I haven’t in so long. It occurred to me I’d somehow forgotten to notice that sea of living things that is there moving and singing and serenading us always.

Two bird feeders lured red finches, chickadees, cardinals and doves. A chipmunk scurried across the grass and then back — chomp, pause, chomp — in his wired, fast-twitch way, just as a rabbit hopped out of the blue and pink hydrangeas and into the neighbor’s yard (but don’t tell my dad, because the rabbit is apparently hungry for our plants). The loud summer bugs raged in a chorus and a yellow butterfly landed on a table nearby, and then floated away. Squirrels jumped between branches in a mad chase. A breeze let a spiderweb catch a golden ray of sun, and a mosquito feasted on my leg. Everyone free to grow, interact, sing, yell, cry, jump, run.

I couldn’t believe it! Oh what we miss when we live in the city. I suppose that, too, is just another creature world — of the working, playing and noise-making. Both worlds are beautiful, and both are alive. And loud.