that moment between

It is Sunday evening and I am sitting on my deck, happy that I have a deck. I am freshly showered after four hours of yard work, gardening, and planting annuals in my flower boxes and containers. And I am tired. I love this time of the year. I love this time of day this time of year. I love this time of day this time of year this day of the week. I am happy listening to the sparrows and pleased that I know the difference between a song sparrow, a chipping sparrow and a white-throated sparrow. I know because I bothered to learn. I bothered to learn because I feed the birds, and I wondered.

I see a robin, a blue jay (I wonder why the male and female jay look the same, unlike other birds – this is something I haven’t bothered to learn, yet), a flicker, a cardinal, chipmunks and squirrels. Last week, I saw an oriole, a shy visitor who I always keep an eye out for. They don’t come to the feeder but I hear them, so I look high up in my oaks and the trees in my neighbors’ yards because I have learned that’s where they like to perch. I bothered to learn that too.

It’s quiet out here now. As summer wears on, the noise will increase. Pool parties, ice cream trucks, fireworks, but for now, just at this moment, there feels like a pause. It feels like that moment between the inhale and the exhale. The temperature is neither cold nor hot, neither cool nor warm. The light is soft though still bright. Dinner is ready; I heard the timer, but it can just wait. A lot of the bird chatter is between juvenals (or is it juveniles? The ones who were born this year.) and their parents. While similar in size, it’s easy to see who is who because one cheeps and chirps, and jumps and flaps its wings, and makes an eternal fuss and the other feeds him (or her). They are just like teenagers who want the car keys to go out on their own but still need the reassurance that mom and dad are still there when they run into a situation that they can’t figure out yet. I love them. They are still in between.

A woodpecker. Purple vinca flowers. A catbird. The aroma of a nearby linden tree. The dappled willow in full bloom. The distant quiet rumble of an airplane. The birdsong. The bird teenagers. An early summer evening, in between day and night.

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6/1/2026