The stuff that seems obvious and reliable when you’re younger gradually becomes more interesting. And maybe because I am now in a different and more advanced stage of life, I find that fact to be really interesting.
In Rome right now, the morning’s birdsong seems more remarkable because it is spring. I try to listen carefully until the sounds of irritated traffic cloggers commence with drowning out the delicate melody. That’s when I know that I really need to get a move on. And in spring, the signs of rebirth are juxtaposed by the necessity to block off major streets so that the dozens of majestic trees can be pruned back. It does nothing to help with the gridlock—but it’s kind of a site to behold: heavy-leaning car horns against a backdrop of sweeping branches falling to the asphalt so that workers can bunch them all up in huge piles to be disposed of. You skip even a year of this important landscape work, and Mother Nature will have the upper hand. I find this interesting too.
About four weeks ago, I walked by a building known for a wooden tangle of vines climbing up the eastern corner. I stopped to snap a picture, because I’ve been here long enough to know that very soon, that the view would shift like some sort of magic trick. Something that younger me might not have lingered on, but one that I have now come to count on as very much worth my time. You see, the transition from winter to spring inevitably happens when my attention is focused on other minutiae—but I still know that I want to bear witness. That’s why I took the photo. For those later moments when I am yelling inside my car because some human has triple parked for “solo un attimo” and is now blocking the road. My day takes me through various stages of exasperation and wonder. But at the end of the day, my adult body wants to migrate back to the idea of promise and renewal.
As a kid, I do remember being enchanted by the forces of nature. In particular, it was in the early morning once the weather got good and I only needed the window screen to keep me from the outdoors. As humans, we have an easier time lingering on the first waking moments, if only because the gears in our brains are still pretty sticky. But then it’s only a matter of time before we’re spooled up into whatever is flashy—maybe not 24-hour news chyrons, but maybe a cartoon or something that is engineered to captivate our attention. Backpacks and trends picked up by others in school, soon they are replaced by the workplace and whatever the Problem of the Day happens to be. It’s understandable why the earliest moments of our moments get washed away so quickly. And if I had my say, I would wish that nature’s moments that you wake upon first thing in the morning somehow carry through and remain a notable moment that you are able to reflect upon come the end of day. I know that it rarely is.
And while I compete in the adulthood obstacle course, I do find myself making more space for moments that used to seem overly simplistic. The birds singing, the loquats maturing to yellow on the tree. My guess is I’m doing this because I no longer have the same amount of mental energy as my young brain once had. Back when I was wholly-consumed in the input-taking phase of life. It’s like when you’re sitting in the backseat of the car, and your parents are listening to classical music. Or perhaps your Dad was hogging the TV, completely captivated by the show Cosmos on PBS. Bo-ring. (Yes indeed, I am from an era that did not include smartphones, tablets…and more than one television in the house that did not have cable.)
Cable TV or no, there have always been so many blinking objects vying for one’s attention that I believe, sooner or later, you get pushed to a saturation point. In some way or another, we start to slough off the stuff that only feels like additional weight. We gravitate back to elements that feel more fulfilling, maybe more quietly profound. I do not yet have a desire to watch Cosmos, but I do find myself pulled to just hang outside and listen to the birds, keen to observe nature for signs of change that I know is coming.
I recently finished reading this book about a guy who walked from Washington, DC to New York City. It was one of those observational reads, one with no great climax or cast of difficult characters to contend with—but all the same, it was a winding tale that I found I could richly appreciate. Again something about being an adult, and finding activities that center you without all of the other gunk crowding your brain.
Not long ago, I passed by that house with the unsightly branches running up the length of its side. I walked over to where I had previously stood to take my photograph a few weeks back, only this time it looked like an artist had gone back over the setting and added a thousand points of lilac on those branches. It made me smile. Of course the wisteria are now flowering in many of the neighborhoods throughout Rome, and I took this data point as a sort of reassurance.
After finishing her first career, my sister recently told me that she’s commenced a college study of geology. Like me, she is not exactly someone who found any interest in the Earth Sciences as a kid. But she’s found that she is taken in by the layers and stories that are contained within the formations lining her bumpy backyard and beyond. She spends more time out in nature, exploring her plot of undeveloped land and doing whatever the heck recharges her amongst the sounds and sites. I love this for her, and I completely get why she is now geared towards this study.
As I finish writing this, I can hear that there are neighbors who are awake, out and about. I know this because they are talking in loud tones, and drowning out the pigeons, pigeons and yes the wild parakeets that are loudest first thing. “Summer is here,” another neighbor tells us once we head outdoors, and indeed we can feel that the sun is already starting to beat down with persistence. This particular time of the year packs the most punch, mainly because we are all in such close proximity to the coldest, most seemingly-barren months. And as an adult person, the kind that finds joy in these commonplace things, I appreciate this multimedia show of sight, sound and warming immensely. I feel charged up, ready to take on whatever minutiae will come at me in the coming days.