Memorial Day, 1970

Awake at 6:30, up at 7:00 and out onto my rock. Saw, to spark my morning into life, a scarlet tanager, perched on the rocks as close to the singing water as I would dare go myself. Brilliant scarlet, true - with black, black wings. What an incredible revelation it is to see something as this expressing life - not flat as in a photograph or a painting, but round and moving - alive in all its senses. This particular bird hopped from rock to rock looking perhaps ? for some of the large earthworms I've seen moving across rock & through pool - it kept always the same distance from me showing, however, very little fear. It was as tho proof that - tho I see it, or another again - now across the small cove next which I sit - my weakening eyes cannot see it in sharp detail, but the bright color could not be missed among the neutral shades of its surroundings. There, now, I can better see with my binoculars - the red is truly brilliant but there is a paling under the wing & a mottled portion on the dark wing but she sits quite fat & serene on the rock ledge above the lapping water as tho simply enjoying the rarity of sunshine just as I am doing.

Now I look again and she is gone - as is the other bird, strange to me, I saw the same circular field of vision tho on a rock beyond the tanager & a bit higher - white of breast & black of head tho it looked as tho the back & wings might be greyer - not a gull, but larger than a songbird. it hopped to a lower rock hidden behind the tanager's outcrop & out of my vision.

It's after breakfast & beautifully sunny to a point - tho, threateningly, halfway across the arm of the lake hangs the heavy fogbank, as tho ready to pounce & once again shroud my shore. I fear it will very soon - not as fog perhaps but as all encompassing greyness. The fog horns are still sounding as they have continuously since I arrived yesterday. Yes, it's coming - already the arm is blanketed & the air cooler.

After dishes - a grey world again, tho still a lovely one - kitten Ginger is leaning against my arm purring and now sitting (as I write) on the table looking out the window, watching something high that I cannot spot - her head is tilted back - perhaps a gull? Now down to follow 2 people, a German-hiker-looking couple, walking along the rocks. The birches are still in bud or small new-leaf condition. The undergrowth is low & undeveloped, all allowing greater distance in view. Water silver-grey except where breaking it becomes a clear grey-green frothed with white. It pulses mildly and endlessly. Living here I would not be alone as I am alone at home because here there is distance, space, openness, privacy, timelessness - oh, I see now, a small gnat caught Ginger's eye & she follows its erratic movements faultlessly.