Life in the Real World

Good morning friends! The audio is a recording of the following story so please read or listen as suits you best.On a chilly spring morning, a horned grebe swims nearby, all alone. As the sun rises he starts to make a sound that to my ears sounds like an anxious, plaintive prayer. A sound of longing and looking for the comfort of his tribe. I feel this longing in my heart. I try to speak back to him, softly, hoping somehow he will feel less alone. You and I little one, we are here together. Birds often call at sunrise, that time of moving into the world, engaging with all that is around you. Is that time unsettling for birds too? Do they carry doubts and fears with them, wondering if they will find belonging and acceptance in this day? Do they feel lost the way I sometimes do when I have traveled far from my heart’s home? Do they too have moments of forgetting and remembering as they open their eyes? Feeling their feet or feathers on the earth and needing a moment to remember where they are. The wind picks up and I see a cloud of gray moving my way. High in the sky, over the center of the lake, dancing like the Aurora Borealis. The cloud approaches and I recognize a flock of small birds. My heart sings out, “please come down and see me”, and I may have said it out loud. I watch the swirl descend and see the shimmering green and blue wings and fluffy white bellies of tree swallows. The firsts of spring make my heart soar and I am smiling from ear to ear as they fly around me.The swallows move individually and as one. They circle around, higher, lower, then higher again. They briefly land in a nearby tree then take off again and disappear into the bright sky. I wonder if they are gone. A few minutes later they come back, somehow having gone over my head and flying towards me again, into the wind using it to hover just a little.It’s magical to watch them repeat this dance over and over. Each time coming close then moving away. Appearing, disappearing, swirling, dancing, swooping, cooperating and chasing each other until they eventually move on. A beautiful example of community and belonging. Each one a part of the tribe, a part of the dance. Carrying their place in the world with them as they make their long migration. We dance too, though perhaps it is not so obvious and so often we can feel like we are dancing alone. Our hearts dance with other hearts hoping to be seen, hoping to be loved, hoping to belong, hoping to make a difference. Our joy and sorrows swirl together, forming their own dancing clouds. You and I, the grebes and the swallows, at our best we make a dance of beauty out of the joy and sorrow of life. Perhaps we just need that moment of remembering.My sweet little horned grebe friend and his plaintive cry:Life in the Real World is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Spring is really picking up now! Trees have budded, little purple flowers cover the fields and birds are migrating in larger numbers. The birds waste no time getting to the business of making babies. These geese flew in, landed right in front of me and started doing this sweet little mating dance so I flipped the video on - let’s just say they are not camera shy. Mama goose then proceeded to build herself a nest on one of the nearby boats. I thought she’d get run out by the marina staff, but a week later she’s still there. Papa goose patrols the marina and makes sure nothing and no one goes close to mama goose. He does not allow ANY other geese to land in the vicinity. He’s a very protective dad. I’m hoping their babies make it.Lots of beautiful blue herons too, establishing their territory and being very gracious to the photographer.Lots of flickers moving through and I was delighted to capture the flash of yellow under those wings. Last week I wrote about the osprey, but I hadn’t processed all the photos yet. Look how long that wing is when she stretches it out!Thanks for reading, wishing you all a week of finding the comfort of your tribe.Thank you for reading Life in the Real World. This post is public so feel free to share it. Get full access to Life in the Real World at karendavis.substack.com/subscribe

Hello everyone! The audio is a recording of the story below so please listen or read (or both) whichever is more appealing.There were sparkles dancing in the air that morning. Tiny bits of frost carried in the fog, hitting the sunlight just right - or perhaps the sun was throwing glitter in the air just for her benefit. She watched how it appeared and disappeared depending on the background as she shifted her gaze. Had she seen glitter like this before? She could not remember.On a branch across the cove sat a shadow. Almost eagle, not quite hawk and really not quite either, yet it had to be one or the other – right? An insistent heron made a flyby and the shadow took off. Not eagle, she thought, they don’t much care what the herons do. It was only later when she saw a bird sitting closer that she recognized what she had forgotten in the short months of winter – osprey.On the cold, crisp breeze she heard a whistling, a clicking, a trill with a bit of an edge. “Doot-doot-do-do-do-do-do.” She saw two birds dart overhead and her brain searched to remember. Tree swallows? No, too dark. She knew that sound but she searched for the name. They landed to claim the housing that is maintained just for them in the marina and then she laughed with delight – the cheeky, noisy, boisterous, beautiful, flying purple bug-eaters were back! Purple martins.Spring is a time of remembering she thought. Remembering the sounds, remembering the shapes, remembering the flight patterns and the mannerisms of all her feathered friends. Remembering the smell of musty mornings and damp earth. Remembering the feeling of warm sun on her skin.As she watched a pair of eastern phoebes go back and forth from the dock to the grass, gathering materials and carefully constructing a nest in the rafters she thought about how easily she could forget the tail bobs and the sounds and the quick swoop they make to catch bugs in the air.She thought about the strangeness of memory – of what we remember, of what we forget, of how we search the memory banks when sounds and sights and smells nudge us to say, “you know me. You do. Remember.” How a memory from fifty years ago can suddenly appear clear as day and a memory from last fall can be so hard to find. A blessing and a curse and either way, just the way things are.As she watched the sparkles still dancing in the air she wondered when she had forgotten it was ok to delight in such simple things. She tried to remember a time before she thought she needed to be seen as smart or serious or “more grown-up” or whatever it was that sometimes kept her from sharing the joy she felt for ordinary magic.What had all that seriousness ever gotten her really? She imagined smart and serious as a cloak she had forgotten she was wearing. She imagined taking it off, leaving it there on the dock. Walking away now free to listen to the sunlight sing, the water hum and the buds popping out of the branches.She remembered singing silly songs to her small nieces and nephews. Building blanket forts and lego towers and reading “Are You My Mother” or “I Love You This Much” for the hundredth time. She remembered how terribly happy she was in those moments when she left the serious world behind.She imagined a new way of being, a new cloak, this one lighter and much more colorful. Adorned with images of birds and leaves and feathers and ice crystals in rich shades of green, blue and gold. Perhaps it was time to be seen in a different light. Perhaps it was time to remember more parts of herself long forgotten.To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.What signs of spring - or fall! - are you seeing? What are you remembering?Thank you for reading Life in the Real World. This post is public so feel free to share it. Get full access to Life in the Real World at karendavis.substack.com/subscribe

Everything is gray and brown now at the end of winter. It’s easy to feel the despair of the world. Death has had its way. This is the time of volatility and storms in our weather and it seems it is the time of volatility and storms in the world. Temperatures rise, temperatures fall, and shifting winds blow. The gray clouds sweep across the sky and I feel uneasy as the changes start to occur. Yet sitting on the ground with a large flock of robins – 80, 100, how does one count when they are so spread out and never sit still? – I see the tiniest shoots of green. Looking closely at the willow tree I see almost imperceptible buds beginning to form. On this unusually warm morning, I am greeted by a swarm of bugs for the first time in months. In a nearby tree, a downy woodpecker is drumming away, perhaps looking for emerging bugs or trying to impress a mate. A cardinal sings and the winter sparrows search for what they might still find in the leaf litter. I see my first flock of red-winged blackbirds in a while and keep a lookout for the turkey vultures who will return soon. Two beavers are actively building something in the cove. Soon everything will shift. The mergansers, juncos, song sparrows, and ring-billed gulls will head north. Even now the owls and eagles have taken to their nests and soon the cardinals, doves, goldfinches, and hawks will follow. The great migration of birds will pass through. Shorebirds, ducks, geese, swallows, warblers – hundreds of thousands of birds of every shape and size. It will happen before I know it, the gray tree will turn green. The bug-catchers will return and the beautiful spring singers will sing. All that energy is building. I can sense it in the soil, in the trees, in the birds, and in the air. Change is coming. Inside myself, fear rises and falls mixing with sadness and despair and…hope. Our greatest hope is that everything changes. Our greatest fear is that everything eventually is lost. I struggle with the losses, with the great calamities of our times. With climate change, species destruction, war, pandemics, and age. I place my faith in the tiny, green shoots in the grass. Even in the bugs reemerging from the soil. Life finds a way. Life gives us light in the dark. Thank you for reading Life in the Real World. This post is public so feel free to share it.Not going to lie, it is hard to maintain my level balance in the world right now. It’s easy to feel like Frodo, looking for comfort in a wise being like Gandalf.“I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo. ‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”-Frodo Baggins and Gandalf, The Fellowship of the RingMike Snowdon wrote a beautiful post on “Everything is Amazing” talking about brain fog, ways to help, and ways to get out of our heads as we try hold Ukraine in our hearts.One way to help Ukraine through Together RisingAfter stressing myself out so much my back and neck tightened up like a vise, I have doubled down on meditation, audiobooks, and journaling this week. I have been using a meditation app called “Ten Percent Happier” and am finding it very helpful. (If you want to try it, this link should give you a guest pass for 30 days of free access.)I have never been more thankful for the great privilege of sitting by our small county lake at sunrise listening to the birds. It is where my prayers flow most easily.Thank you for reading Life in the Real World. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Life in the Real World at karendavis.substack.com/subscribe

(The recording is a reading of the writing below - hopefully giving you options for the whatever way works best for you to engage with this publication!)Sometime ice melts slowly. Warmed by the sun on a clear day, each drop, one at a time becoming water. Drip, drip, drip, dropping into the ground, sliding off the rock, rejoining the lake.Other times ice is destroyed. A cove full of ice suddenly begins to move under the pressure of the wind and the waves it creates. As the north wind gains strength, each wave pushes into the ice, breaking it into pieces that crash into each other. So quickly the ice disappears with only the stubborn edges holding out a little longer.On this day, the waves are destroying the ice. The entire cove goes from ice covered to nearly ice free in less than thirty minutes even though it’s still below freezing.  I notice how beautiful waterfalls are created each time the water runs over the edge of the remaining ice and then recedes. Back and forth, ebb and flow, each time a little more ice turning to water.The waves create a soundtrack like clinking glass as the ice is pushed and pulled and the pieces crash together. The rising sun creates sparkles in the splashes where the waves meet the rocks. It’s stunning in its beauty and its brevity.I too am constantly trying to melt the ice that forms as tension in my body. Some days there’s less ice and some days more. Sometimes the ice melts one drip at a time and some days a wave of emotion destroys it in an instant. However it melts, I am grateful for the softening.Last week I listened to an episode of the “Ten Percent Happier” podcast where Dan Harris interviewed the amazing singer/songwriter/actress/polymath Sara Bareilles about how she has dealt with anxiety throughout her life. She named her anxious self “tight Tina” and that feels just about right to me.I am grateful for every wave, every bit of sunlight, every single tool I can find that helps to melt me back into the floor, back into my body and back into life.Ice to water. How do you melt the tight places in your life?To receive my posts in your inbox (for free!), please enter your email.I’ve been participating in a Substack class where I’m learning ways to make this newsletter more engaging. I’ve gotten great feedback from classmates and lots of new ideas are spinning in my head. As I’m trying these ideas out in the next few weeks (and months) I’d love to get your feedback on what works for you as a reader/listener and what might make it even better.One thing on my mind is to give you multiple ways of consuming the content, including the voice recording at the beginning. Whether you prefer to read or listen, scroll or rest on one photo, I hope I can provide a bit of a meditation. A little moment of peace in your day with a nudge for contemplation. This is what my mornings at the lake give to me and passing them on seems like an act of reciprocity with the world.Please let me know your thoughts below!Thank you for reading, looking and listening. This post is public so feel free to share! Get full access to Life in the Real World at karendavis.substack.com/subscribe

I thought I’d try a little audio this week, experimenting with new things! The text of the poem I read is below, along with some photos of beauty created recently by the wind. At the end I’ve attached a link to a video of the wind making the ice sing. Who mothers the wind? Who gives her courage and confidence to step out on her own, to blow her own way? Fierce one day and quiet the next. To do her thing despite never pleasing everyone or anyone too much, too little, too warm, too cold never enough. Who helped the wind find her own inner impulse and ignore the well meaning feedback of others? When she howls and rages where does she find comfort? Who tells the wind her mercurial nature is ok wanted needed natural nothing to be ashamed of? Does she feel the softness of feathers riding on her back? Does she see the sun laughing as she and the water play creating ice sculptures on the rocks? When she is still does she know she still exists? Perhaps the same mother who nudges me and says look, there, see my wind daughter at play? See the beauty she creates with her gifts? See how she lifts the birds and makes the ice sing? After all, what is a mother really but one who sees all that you are and delights in your presence?I attempted to catch the sounds of the ice singing as the wind was blowing the waves into it. I don’t think it does it justice really - it was echoing all up and down the cove and I could feel the vibrations through the earth into my body - but it was the best I could do to share it. I learned the term for this is “acoustic resonance” but I just think of it as the singing voice of ice.(The sound was intermittent, captured over the course of an hour but edited for brevity!)The Sounds of IceLove to know your thoughts on how the audio worked in this post and anything else you’d like to share! My wish for all of you is that you feel a sense of being mothered - a sense of feeling seen, valued and loved - as I feel mothered by the lake and all of my feathered, furry and leaf covered friends there.Thanks for reading Life in the Real World! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Get full access to Life in the Real World at karendavis.substack.com/subscribe