Eastern Shore | Michael Valliant

The Kingfisher’s Wing

Driving Trappe backroads I had to stop the car on a small bridge, mid-conversation, just to take in the scene. To recognize and capture the moment: the mist on the river, the slick calm surface of the water, the way the sun froze everything in time, just for a second.

“… After the kingfisher’s wing
Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still
At the still point of the turning world.”
T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton, “Four Quartets”

That’s how Eliot puts those iridescent moments–they can become the still point of a turning world. If there are a handful of books that we get sent back to over and over again in the course of our lives, T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets” is one of those books for me.

This weekend it was Rowan Williams’ book “Being Disciples,” that sent me either down the chute or up the ladder to the kingfisher’s wing. Williams compared prayer to birdwatching (two things I dig and want to spend more time doing). He said:

“I’ve always loved that image of prayer as birdwatching. You sit very still because something is liable to burst into view, and sometimes of course it means a long day of sitting in the rain with nothing very much happening. I suspect that, for most of us, a lot of our experience is precisely that. But the odd occasions when you do see what T.S. Eliot (in section IV of ‘Burnt Norton’) called ‘the kingfisher’s wing’ flashing ‘light to light’ make it all worthwhile. And I think that living in this sort of expectancy–living in awareness, your eyes sufficiently open and your mind both relaxed and attentive enough to see when it happens–is basic to discipleship.”

And that’s it–having our minds and hearts open and expectant, so that we can catch those moments when they happen. Eliot pointed it out for me years ago, Williams reminded me and sent me back to Eliot, but God presents us with those moments every day.

Running through John Ford Park on a Friday morning after a Thursday night rain, and a magnolia blossom all but audibly called out to be noticed and appreciated. It’s so easy to put my head down and pass those moments by, but thankfully I am easily led when it comes to opportunities to marvel and wonder.

Another one of those books to return to countless times over a lifetime is Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass,” particularly “Song of Myself.”

“Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and joy and knowledge that
pass all the art and argument of the earth”
Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”

Have you had those feelings, possibly brought on by those kingfishers’ wing moments that we happen to catch? When you are sitting there, drinking in the day, firehose style, where you know you are missing a lot of what you are trying to take in, and you breathe, and look over and the moment transforms into a feeling and you are in it and it is in you.

The Sitting Tree

I love Shel Silverstein. I have never wanted to punch a character in a story more than the boy in his book, “The Giving Tree.” (as he gets older, not when he was a kid). I had a hard time reading it to the girls because the boy just takes and takes and blows off the tree, and never gets it. My blood is boiling a bit now just thinking about it. But Silverstein couldn’t describe humankind in our time any better.

I aspire to a more complementary relationship to the trees in my life (I get the irony of having a wooden skateboard in the photo). Over the past several years, a particular tree stands out. It’s an Osage Orange tree on the shoreline of the Oxford Cemetery. I have made a point of sitting under it for some time now.

Of late, rest has been hard to come by. At lease the right kind of rest. Rest, for me, is about tuning out the constant demands of what is coming up, and being completely in the moment. It’s when time doesn’t matter and actually passes differently. It’s not the kind of rest that comes from sitting on a couch or sleeping at night. Frequently, it comes from being outside–hiking, walking, skateboarding, reading, bird watching, exploring, kayaking, paddleboarding, reading or writing. I haven’t had enough of that time, those moments lately, and I can tell.

When I rest is when I am open to wonder. When I rest, gratitude overflows–in part because I am not rushing to the next thing. I am not in a hurry.

Thursday morning, I fought the pull of the couch and hit Oxford Conservation Park with longboard, binoculars, and notebook. “Skatebirding” has become a new favorite thing to do. I skated to the cemetery and pulled up under my “Sitting Tree.”

Double-drop longboards make for great birding seats. As I sat to clear my head, think, pray, and take in the morning, a raft of ducks was just off the shore. Watching them move about as a group, they were doing what ducks do. And what is it that people do in that way? What is it that is natural to us, that puts us in a place of doing what we should be doing?

Beyond Mallards, Canvasbacks, and Wood Ducks, I don’t know all the duck types around by first sight. Watching them and checking Cornell’s Merlin App, I pegged them as Ruddy Ducks, but pinged a birding expert friend to make sure. As I watched them, time moved differently. A solo Bufflehead swam up to the Ruddies a couple times, thinking they were his peeps, and then both times flew away skimming the water in a hurry when he realized they weren’t.

These are not my photos, they are from bird ID sites, but the top left is a Bufflehead and the others are male and female non-breeding Ruddy Ducks.

It was the tree, the ducks, the cove, the breeze, the sunrise, the shoreline, and I got to be a part of it. Sitting there, gratitude and joy welled up and started coming out of my eyes. I know I can’t communicate it, but maybe you’ve had moments like that.

Skating back to the conservation park, I wanted to write all this down–something I haven’t been doing enough of except chicken scratch in notebooks.

We’re looking headlong into the holidays. It’s a busy time of year, it’s nighttime dark at 5:30pm and it’s getting colder. Mornings like yesterday remind me that I need to rest. And to rest, I need to get outside. The Sitting Tree is still there. Where am I?

Growing Up Goonies

A 20-pound Siamese cat slept in the crib with me when I was a baby. I didn’t seem to mind, and neither did my parents. I don’t think it sucked the life out of me, as wives’ tales go.

I spent a good part of the summer days of my first 10 years in a several-acre marsh behind our across-the-street neighbors’ house. We built trails, forts, bridges, found rusty muskrat traps, played war, and brought home mud, sticks, cuts, and ticks.

When my world expanded beyond the marsh and our dead-end street, it was into Oxford by bike. And once I got the okay to ride uptown, I don’t think my mom saw me from morning to dinner. There were no cell phones or text messages. It wasn’t a far bike ride home, and if I needed anything I could call from a friend’s house. I don’t think she was particularly worried.

I watch my girls growing up now, in Oxford half of their time, and 14-year-old Anna riding her bike uptown to find friends, to go swimming at the Strand or hang out at the park, or go to the creamery for ice cream. It’s a newer found freedom for her, one I had already known for a few years at her age. It makes me feel good to see her coming into her own.

This spring, The Washington Post ran an article that got me thinking a lot about how many of us grew up in the 1970s and 80s. The author’s reminiscences come after a question by his eight-year-old son while watching the movie, “The Goonies.”

“Where are their parents?” the kid wondered.

It sends him into a reflection on the differences between what it was like to grow up then versus now. How now all play time is scheduled, whereas our group of friends in Oxford would just ride our bikes and see who we could find. Our days were mostly unstructured and largely up to us.

When I hear, “I’m bored,” from one of the girls, my preferred response to give is, “So what are you going to do about that?” At 14 and 11, they can unseat their own boredom. They can use their brains and bodies to come up with adventures. At their ages, we were largely put outside and told to go play.

Having said that, I have always been and am still quick to play–ride bikes up town, play bocce in the yard, pass the lacrosse or field hockey ball, put the paddleboard in the river. I love sharing that time with them.

There are about as many different parenting styles as there are parents. I don’t think one is better or worse than another, just different. I am far from father of the year (though I have seen winners of that distinction based on their t-shirt or coffee mug), I struggle, second guess, worry, question, and frequently don’t get it right. But I see the people the girls are becoming, how they treat people, the grades they get in school, how they laugh and have fun, and I am grateful that sometimes things sink in for them.

One of the goals of being a parent, at least for me, is to raise girls who grow up to be good, thoughtful, caring, compassionate, passionate, independent, creative people. Among the most valuable things my parents gave to me, was/is being able to fall down, get bruised or scratched, get the wind knocked out of me (figuratively, but sometimes literally), and to be able to get up, dust myself off, put myself back together as best I can, and keep going or get back at it. Unfortunately, I still seem to fall down plenty.

Some of that resilience comes from having to figure things out for yourself/themselves. Learning that their own creativity is the key to getting rid of boredom. And learning that sometimes boredom is okay, resting, and not having every day over-scheduled with ten sports teams, music lessons, scouts, and whatever else can be fit into waking hours.

Maybe a lesser examined idea of parenting is the notion that parents should also show their kids that there is more to being a father or mother than simply parenting; that grown-ups (and parents) have jobs, hobbies, passions, adventures, many of which involve kids, but some of which don’t. We are unscrewing a whole new can of worms with that notion, so let’s leave that be for now.

As a father, there is no greater pleasure than watching, and being a part of, Anna and Ava succeeding at something–whether making Principal’s Honor Roll, or scoring a goal, or being there for a friend, or creating art, or making a good choice, or being all smiles and laughs and making new friends on the dance floor at a wedding.

Growing up is different for the girls than it was for my grandfather (the dude sitting amongst the oyster shells above, circa 1905). Oxford is a different town, parenting is different, and being a kid is different. There are worries now that hadn’t taken shape 100 or 50 or 25 years ago.

But I’d like to think that there is still some magic and adventure that the girls can find for themselves. And while I hope that doesn’t entail running from criminals, getting stuck in underground caves, or involving the police; maybe there are figurative treasure maps and One-Eyed Willy still smiles and winks at kids today.

A Thinking Man’s Guide to Oxford

I’ve come to love lazy paddles. It’s a mindset, an ease, deep breaths. The purpose isn’t to see how far you can go, but to float; to enjoy time on the water; to look for birds, or treasure; to talk; enjoy a beverage; watch the sunset.

Last evening’s lazy paddle netted an Eastern Kingbird sighting (a first), Bald Eagle and Ospreys, multiple Great Blue Herons and Green Herons, either a sandpiper or sanderling scurying along rip-rap; a majestic sunset on the river; rich amarena cherry ice cream, pulling up to the Scottish Highland Creamery by kayak; and a full moon rising over Town Creek.

Other than the ice cream, the evening cost nothing. As we were floating and the sun was teasing some clouds, I said, “Most people don’t do this.” It seemed a shame. I was grateful to share it all. Lazy paddles hold the key to how to enjoy Oxford.

Oxford, Md., is a town with pricey real estate values. It’s not full of shops or things to check off your agenda. But if you don’t need a guide book to tell you what to do; you are good with self-guided and easy-paced; Oxford has no end to what it can offer the thinking visitor or resident.

Benches

All over town there are park benches sitting alongside the waterfront. Some of them are obviously located, some of them take some searching. Where there is a bench, it is public access. Take a load off, sit down. Watch the water. Read. There are benches at small beaches. Gives you more reason to explore.

Oxford Park

The park is the crown jewel of the town. It’s a shady lunch spot after a bike ride. It’s a playground for kids. The living shoreline is a study in fighting erosion, while also leaving some beach for kids to play on and rocks full of periwinkles to explore. It’s the first image that comes to my mind when someone says the word, “park.” It’s changed a bit over time, but the soul of the place is still the same. It’s easy to build your day around Oxford’s park.

The Strand

Over the past couple years, the beach end of the Strand, just down from the Oxford-Bellevue Ferry, seems to have become a local hot spot. When my girls asked why everyone went to the beach at the Strand, I asked them to tell me where there was another public beach in Talbot County. At this point the sea nettles have taken hold for the summer, but the beach is still full of folks setting up picnics, putting in kayaks, paddleboards, or rafts, and taking advantage of a shallow, scenic expanse of beach. There aren’t many to be found in the area.

Architecture

Oxford is not a town that overwhelms you. But it will expand your soul if you slow down and take it all in. The churches, the houses, the boat yards, and restaurants, all speak to and from the water that surrounds them, and walking the few miles around town never fails to slow down my heart rate and put a smile on my face.

Community

One thing you can learn pretty quickly about Oxford, is that it is an odd mix of people, odd being a good quality. In a quick cruise through town, you’re likely to meet watermen, restaurant workers, landscapers, retired folks from various walks of life, volunteer fire fighters, artists; you still find kids on skateboards or riding bikes, and the lunch crowd waiting in line at the Oxford Market‘s deli, is equal parts blue and white collar.

If you are just giving the town a once-through, maybe you don’t catch that, but I think you will. And if you decide you dig the town and make more than one trip, or become a frequent visitor or resident, you will find out for sure. A family recently moved from Los Angeles to Oxford, citing the feeling of community as one of the reasons for their move. I get what they say and felt.

I wouldn’t be doing my day job if I didn’t make mention of the Oxford Community Center. Any place that you can go, for free, and watch The Big Lebowski on the big screen; see Shakespeare performed on the lawn; catch a lecture or concert; see a World War II photography exhibit; or be a part of a community potluck dinner, is worth looking into.

Outside

Oxford has its icons. Those places and activities like taking a ride across the river on the Oxford-Bellevue Ferry. Or eating steamed crabs and taking in the sunset at The Masthead at Pier Street. Or fine dining at The Robert Morris Inn. Each of those things is a singular and signature Oxford experience.

But this is a “thinking man’s guide to Oxford,” because it is about free and low cost means of finding out what the town is about. Oxford is more than just going out to eat or a place to tie a boat up. It is a place to savor slowly.

Between a 5-mile running loop I have around town, walking dogs, biking for ice cream or a beer at a dock bar, I tend to cover some miles through town, and almost always find something new to take pictures of. I find reading perches and sunrise and sunset vantage points.

Oxford is a town I fall in love with anew every day because I find different ways to be outside in and around it. Like a lazy sunset paddle and ice cream. Best enjoyed when shared.