The Day the Swallows Came Home

The tree swallows are here already.  They arrived January 30 much to my dismay.  Swooping and calling and chirping their merry song over my pastures while reacquainting themselves with the nesting boxes mounted on the corner posts of the fields.  For all intents and purposes they should not be here.  For the 20 years I've been hosting these migratory species they have not shown up till late March for breeding, at the earliest one year they were here in late February.  But they are here now.  Their happy, perky squeaks and pips should cheer me but instead I worry.  Deep worry about how fast the change in our environment is moving.  Six weeks early, eight weeks early?  Wump World has come true with startling accuracy.

Nature's plasticity allows it to prevail in the rapidly changing environment.  The range of adaptations that some species have will make them victors while others will crash.  Evolution will rage again with human going extinct and a new apex predator rising from what ever survives.  This series of events should occur on a scale of thousands of years not two or three decades.

Meanwhile, while while our national "empire" collapses just like all the other historical overreaches from the Egyptians to the Romans to the English, we trudge on within our personal narratives of familial regularity.

For example, I dislike dogs.  I don't like dog barking.  I don't like wet dog noses.  I don't like dogs sniffing my hands, legs, or any other body part.  I don't like dogs chewing.  I don't like dogs sneaking off to kill chickens.  And I really don't like dogs who role in nasty, decomposing dead things or in other animals pee or fecal matter, then trot around proud of their new scent.

We unfortunately have two dogs.  They are about four years old, so I figure I have another 8-10 years of them.  I am required, for my own peace of mind, to consider them therapy animals for my husband and tolerate them while cringing, holding back that spine singing annoyance at their disgusting doggy ways.  In effort to not let the dogs consume my subconscious hate sub-programming, I have to find something good about them to survive.  Mike loves the dogs.  And since he finds them so redeeming I have to squint at them through the lens of doggy goggles my husband wears.  I suppose it is a worthy sacrifice on my behalf.  Ugh...  If they make him happy I will endeavor to ignore the dogs antics and conduct a myriad of mindful breaths.  These days lots of slow breathing.

Maybe that is what we all need in this time of multi-crisis, overexposure to the regime, and generalized hyper stimulation from all media sources.  Slow time down.  Just breathe.