Blood and Water

Coming back East is a major exercise in juggling for me… I have family in Maine, now, and all my friends in Boston where I used to live. I’m also taking advantage of this trip to do some genealogical research, which means travelling to New Hampshire and Philadelphia—and spreading myself thinner over a two-week period than I usually do.

Yesterday, however, felt a bit like I was back in my former life. I took a trip to Plum Island in northern Massachusetts with two birding friends, and we sloshed our way through the muck into Plumbush marsh looking for seaside sparrows (no luck, though plenty of sharp-tails), edged quietly down a boat-ramp trying to find the clapper rail that was clacking incessantly (saw it several times as it collapsed itself vertically through reeds and grasses), pottered about the New Pines to the overlook where we saw a tricolored heron, and generally ate salty and sweet snacks in between forays. The weather wasn’t good (showers all day, which to me were heavenly) so few other birders were around, but I still ran into old friends all along the way.

It’s a dislocating experience to catch glimpses of a time that is past. I have left people behind me each time I’ve moved somewhere, which has been often, and these friends get connected in my mind with the place I left. Sometimes they move too, and the past gets fragmented, almost ruptured. We are a culture that is just manic to move. When I read Fred’s posts on Fragments From Floyd about how he’s stayed pretty much in the same region all his life, I’m astonished and a little envious. Maybe that’s part of the reason why I’m pursuing the naming of dead ancestors: if I can’t be rooted in a place, there’s no way of escaping the fact that their blood flows in my veins…