looking north; the barge is on the horizon!

It would seem that staying out of the way of a big boat would be easy. They take up a lot of room; they are visible. But it is not that simple. This morning as I slipped my boat into the water at the Tivoli landing, the water was lightly feathered.  At 41 degrees, I urged the sun and its promised warmth as it peaked over the eastern shoreline. A faint rumble emerged from the north. I scanned the river and saw nothing. But the noise wasn’t going away. It had to be a boat. I looked more closely. There, on the horizon, was a double barge, pushed by a tug. It was enormous. And it was almost invisible, thanks to my angle, the angle of the sun, the height of the barge. It all worked against me. I hugged the shore until it chugged past, then I made a dash for the western shore.

“Do you think you would be lonely living out here?” I ask our car full of women, all dressed for a day hike up West Kill peak. I used to romanticize living far from everyone and everything, craved silence the way some people crave chocolate.  Mary responds quickly, “Yes.” I would be too, I admit.  Though I often spend long days alone I always see another person: the post mistress, or Mikee the baker where I buy a brioche on Wednesday mornings. In the bakery I’ll know someone, share a few words, a laugh. I may only talk to another person for five minutes in a day but that is five minutes of touching the world. I think of these moments as ballast, keeping me upright. This Catskill town’s emptiness feels vast. To add to it, there is evidence, deep, piled up, destroyed evidence of Hurricane Irene from this past fall. Some bridges have been rebuilt, some remain in progress. But the river bed is wide, wider than is needed for the stream that now flows through. The debris that lines the riverbank includes massive logs and piles of brush. Looking at it I sense the force of the water that swept through here, altering this landscape.

This feeling vanished once I was on the water. The air shifted between spookily warmed and cooler patches that rose from the water itself. The smell was of an enclosed room that needed to be aired out after a winter. I pushed South against the current and a level wind. Moving slowly, I was able to take in my river for the first time this season. And this is what I thought: there’s a lot of garbage out here.

Florida Canyon

That day, we had had no luck finding the bird. No one that day found it, not even the friendly couple who had driven down from Tempe. They helped us identify the Hammond’s flycatcher, and when I pointed toward the sky he was the first to call it: Golden Eagle. Later, we joined this couple sitting on a bench and watching one of the famous feeders in Madera Canyon as Lesser Goldfinch and Bridled Titmouse came and went. Everyone but me drove home disappointed. I hardly cared about finding such a special bird—I was still intent on orienting myself in this new birding landscape, on finding the usual birds. I was happy—no, thrilled--with my Black-throated Sparrow (not to be confused with the Black-chinned Sparrow) and with the Lesser Goldfinch, and the Bridled Titmouse birds I had never seen before.

winding dirt road into Sycamore Canyon

So of course I want to go. It’s my third day in Tucson and I had spent the day before in Catalina State Park, a place I hiked regularly when I lived in Tucson and a place that is far from remote or rugged. Families with children crawled their way up the wide sandy paths, and played by the stream that trickles through the valley. I had found lots of wonderful, new for me birds there: the Green-Tailed Towhee, the Pyrrhuloxia (known to locals as a Pyro), and an unidentifiable Hummingbird perched atop an ocotillo. I now wanted away from the crowds. Sycamore would be an adventure.

With Connie, heading up Black Dome

And then there are the other lists in my life. The list of climbs I have scaled—this exists only in my mind. The list of mountains I have climbed in the Catskills. There are 35 over 3,500 feet and getting up all of them is a vague goal of mine. But I can never keep track of what I’ve done and so that list is both incomplete and inaccurate. The list of birds I have seen. This is a list that birders take seriously.  But once again my keeping track is haphazard. Some days I come home from birding and carefully highlight the new bird in my Sibley’s and mark the date and place. But often I forget. I get home and make tea and go on with my busy life. Somehow I think I would be a better person if I could keep these lists; keeping track of my climbs, my mountains, my birds would be tending to my life. And that attention would make me more focused, more attentive to detail. Would life be neater if these lists were in order?