Not Yet

Coming home Friday night about 10:30, not two blocks from my house, I heard a strange bird cry. It was sort of crow-like, but not quite. Birds are generally quite at night, excepting Lennon/McCartney’s “black bird singing in the dead of night” – it’s true, they do; I heard them last May in the Scottish Highlands.

I looked up to see: a flock of geese. Snow geese, I suspect, heading NNW, in a shallow U shape, very light underneath, perhaps reflecting some of the city’s light-spill.

A fitting end to the day spent with an old friend. We graduated from high school together nearly 26 years ago, a day I'll always remember because his wheelchair rolled back onto my shoe during the ceremony. Marcus Aurelius noted “What brings perfection to one’s way of life is to spend each day as if it were the last.” I can’t say I do that, most days, but yesterday was up there.

And today I spent some hours with an old girlfriend who was in town touching base with friends. We brunched well at the Little Owl, saw the Audubons, and then wandered in Central Park, where we spotted a raccoon waking from a sun-baked nap in the crotch of a tree.

Hey, that’s two perfect days in a row. Still, I don’t intend dying tonight.