City Rooster

For many, fall is about autumn leaves and pumpkins, those colorful, happy symbols. For me, it's about the return of the crow. One perches on a tree branch a few houses away and barks at the morning. It's an enthusiastic welcome.

I still feel that way about morning, even if my actions don't reflect it. I used to throw back the covers with authority, jump out of bed like a superhero, skip down the steps, and practically pounce on coffee, which I drank out of love rather than need.

I longed aloud yesterday morning, while the hot pack for my back was in the microwave for two minutes, and I slumped at the counter by the stove, holding myself up to pour hot water into my Melitta. "What happened to those days when I used to wake up raring to go?" I asked. My husband said, "You're not 18 anymore."

I recently turned forty-five. I'm considerably slower. Four recreational eight-minute miles at 5:30 every morning have become three ten-plus-minute miles at 11:00 a.m.—and only some days—after a series of heating pads and forward bends at the coffee altar.

This morning, I awoke alone, my husband having gone to the shore to celebrate his mother's Halloween birthday, I remaining here for the costumed (or not; these days, it's hard to tell what's a costume) beggars. My dogs awoke at 5:00 a.m. raring to go, and I thought I'd take a lesson from them today.

I'd rather mimic the crow, our city rooster, who waits until a speck of sunlight peers through the dark curtain of sky before he begins to bark his welcome. It means an extra hour of sleep.

The crow is my favorite bird for so many reasons, among them his gloss black attire, always tasteful and slimming, appropriate day or night. (That's especially true if you're Jewish, as I witnessed last weekend at the wedding of two sixty-something Jews; bride, groom, and guests wore black at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday. I stood out against them in my powder blue velvet pants, winter white blouse and booties. Like a murder of crows crowding out the sky.)

Fall and winter mornings promise a reverse confetti: the sky is a watercolor painting of warms and cools, vibrant pinks and oranges on navy and cyan, a sprinkle of black dots, crows, headed to work—as foragers, mostly.

In the evening, as the sun begins its closing symphony, the crows head home in numbers too big to count, sometimes flooding the sky, the way India ink bleeds on a wet page. Crows, like a few other birds (robins, starlings, herons, blackbirds), roost, which means they sleep in large numbers when it's not breeding season. (Hey, we all need privacy for that.) Crows are fall and winter roosters.

I'm sensitive to their presence now and their absence in the spring.

The next book on my reading list is one about the habits of crows. I'm looking forward to understanding them more. In a way, studying the things we like gives us a better idea of who we are. Once we figure that out, though, we're on to the next incarnation of our selves; evolution is a fact of human life.

Perhaps understanding this moment can guide the choices we make about who we become tomorrow. Even if it doesn't matter, the sunrise is a surprise and a delight each day, a quiet time of reflection. It never hurts to get an early start.

After all, there is so much to do. Today is the first day of November. It is morning. I have coffee and a heating pad and an essay and a child to wake and send to school.

I am barking at the sky.

I am raring to go.