asakiyume: (autumn source)
I went for an annual physical the other day. The place I go, they make you fill out this form where you rate how you're feeling mentally/emotionally ("I think the world would be better off without me (a) never (b) sometimes (c) often (d) always"--that type of thing). I tend toward the melancholic, and these haven't been the most cheerful few years--I mean, it's been a Five Year Plan's worth at least of not-greatness--but basically I'm good. I checked "never" for all of them except one, "Have you been depressed recently?" I mean, who hasn't? But I also checked that it doesn't interfere with my life, etc., because it doesn't.

So first comes someone who does the basic screening, and he says, "Did you happen to fill out the X-246 form?" (or whatever they call the form--it wasn't an intuitive name), and I said yes and gave it to him, and he said "Great," and set it down on the table without a second look. Or maybe he gave it a second look and made a spot judgment that I was clearly fine.

Later came the nurse practitioner who was going to do the physical. She set her laptop down on top of the form on the desk, which definitely precluded her looking at it. She didn't ask after it. We did all the physical stuff, I thanked her, she left, and I put my clothes back on. I collected the form from the desk and shoved it in my pocket and left.

I don't really have any mental or emotional issues I want to talk about them with. But like... why make people fill out a form like that you're not going to even acknowledge what people write? I suppose if I'd checked off red-flag boxes, they would have initiated a conversation.

In better news, it's the season when starlings mass in the trees, somehow invisible in spite of their numbers, and talk to each other in their squeaky-wheel way of talking. And then they fly through the trees, and you catch these flashes of black, like sparkles on water, but opposite.
asakiyume: (misty trees)
The starlings over the cornfields of Hadley, Massachusetts, sometimes achieve murmuration levels--I saw them do it Saturday, them moving together like a great whale at play. It was breathtaking. I went back yesterday with a camera but came too late in the day, and then again today, and was only a *little* too late, or they weren't in a mood to all rise (ALL RISE) and swoop, and then settle.

Also, maybe if I had turned the phone sideways it would have made a wider video? I am very new to the ways of the smartphone. (Video is 38 seconds)



Although I didn't catch the murmuration yesterday, I did get a photo of the sun like a pearl in the shell of the sky...

golden sunset

And then another of all the many colors sunset sky is heir to...

red sunset
asakiyume: (snow bunting)







The other day I went on a long run in the late afternoon, and at the end, was passing a field, and the starlings were congregating there for the evening, and they did that thing--small groups joining one another, sinking, then lifting, and others joining them, and others, and the setting sun was shining through their wings so they looked golden, while the birds themselves were black, and my heart lifted right up with them.

I use my very old (used to be my daughter's) cellphone as a stopwatch, and it also has a photo function, so I tried to get some pictures, which then I tried to enhance so you could get some hint of what I saw:







It was a brief, wonderful gift, seeing that, being part of that.


asakiyume: (autumn source)
At the Cold Spring Orchard today, so many starlings, thick on the telephone wires across from the main building, and in a bare tree by it, and more and more kept coming and finding room on those wires ("slide over; can I squeeze in here?"), and they were chatting to one another in their squeaky voices, metallic parts in need of oil, but they were cheerful and comfortable squeaks--not strained or agonized. So many, against a sky that was a broad watercolor sweep of gray. They filled up that sky with their chatter and their black silhouettes. They were crowd sourcing themselves. Then I opened the trunk of my car to take out a bag, and then I let the trunk slam shut, and they all lifted up,

all of them,

And they all stopped speaking,

and they gathered into one cloud and flew away without saying a word, the only sound the whirring of all those wings,

and I wanted to call, Come back

don't leave the sky so empty.


But they wouldn't have heard me.

....

In other news, there is a UMass cranberry bog, and they were selling cranberries from it. However, I bought only apples: Baldwins and Roxbury Russets. But I took the card by the cash register, with the photo of cranberries ripening on the bush (they look like coffee berries), and the links to pages with recipes.

Profile

asakiyume: created by the ninja girl (Default)
asakiyume

July 2025

S M T W T F S
  123 45
678 9101112
13 14 1516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 27th, 2025 06:54 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios