Night Birds

For a city dweller, the first night back in the country is like being at sea. The first few steps off the porch, and on to the lawn that separate the house from the woods, are always tentative. In the next few moments, as the light thrown by the house diminishes and the dark expands before you, everything becomes less distinct, just as the land falls away from sight.

In the country, the night is not simply the hours between sunset and sunrise. It is an otherworldly environment. And, although it has been mapped, and its limits delineated, it remains a mysterious place, one filled with secrets and full of surprises.

When I arrive in the country, no matter how late it is and regardless of the weather, I always take a walk before going to bed. Each walk progresses in exactly the same way. First, I become aware of the stillness. Not the quiet — that comes later — but a sensation of calm. A smoothness that poets often describe as velvet-like is not an exaggeration. Unlike the city, where roads grumble and sidewalks vibrate, the country feels settled and rooted. The difference between the two environments is the difference between tongue and groove cabinetry and mass-produced, wobbly, stapled furniture. One feels solid on earth in a way one doesn’t on pavement.

Then, the calm becomes the quiet. As everyone who lives in the country knows, there’s nothing silent about the country. The air is filled with sound. Sound that carries and magnifies. The barking dog that sounds just around the road is actually on a chain a mile away. Nevertheless, a powerful experience of quiet is what first strikes visitors from the city. This impression is so strong, it’s almost impossible not to comment on it. The city women I’ve taken to the cabin over the years seem at first detached from the material surrounding them and then they feel as if they were being watched.

Laura said to me, “It’s so quiet here. I feel as if I’m on a screen.”

I replied, “In a movie?”

“Yes, I’m no longer me. I’m someone else.”

Before long, a visitor grows accustomed to this alien environment, just as they learn to call the city’s streets home.

Laura asked, “What is that flapping up there?” She points. “An owl? Do you have owls here? I’ve never seen an owl.” She is looking into the tops of the trees and beyond their tops. But in her movie, the woods are as crowded with owls as her city is by pigeons.

Owls are always a popular choice because they are one of the few night birds that city dwellers can name. And then, there are all those weird, indecipherable sounds of branch scraping branch, of wind whispering or whistling. There are insects and animal sounds that are, frankly, impossible to identify, made up of variable volumes and intensity. And, they make noise, not music.

Of course, there is the moon. Few things are as grand as a full, or nearly full moon in the country. Seen whole from a clearing, or in a shower of light through the trees, it never ceases to astonish. It can shine with the intensity of a spot light.

I told Laura, “When I was younger, my friends and I would turn off car lights and drive by its light. When the moon is waning, its absence is profound, and it’s not unusual to find yourself unable to see your hand in front of your face.” Finally, above it all, are the stars, which, to my eyes are the most astonishing aspect of the country night sky. They emerge slowly, one by one, and as a child I believed they could be counted. But quickly their numbers multiply and explode until they spill out of the sky flashing like schools of tropical fish. By midnight, stars of various size appear, from the barely discernable and flickering pinholes to the size of small coins. And they are full of mischief, shooting across the heavens and falling and tumbling in a magical pyrotechnic display.

“Did you see that?”
“That what?”
“The shooting star. I made my wish.”
“And?”
Laura laughed and said, “And, I can’t tell you.”

Some women move closer to you in the woods; Laura kept a step or two ahead of me. Looking up, one sees what the Greeks saw and can understand the source of their mythology.

I always enjoy walking alone in the dark, but it is not a simple pleasure like walking along the beach or taking a hike during the day. It’s complicated, full of feeling, and not without a measure of unease.

Laura is entirely at ease.

I want to take off my clothes, she tells me.

Human beings are supposed to be afraid of the dark. We are diurnal creatures, and all the fire, oil lamps, and electricity ever produced have never made us feel entirely comfortable at night. In fact, it could be argued that all the unnecessary illumination that hides night from city dwellers is nothing more than a colossal nightlight, intended to offer our unconscious a semblance of comfort.

“Don’t you want to take off your clothes, too?”

She is already naked, lit by the moon. A wood nympth. A movie star. She’s insincere. She has already forgotten me. I’m not in her movie now. I walk home.

Will she find her own way back to the cabin? Likely not tonight, although I’ll leave the light on for her.

As I circle back to the cabin, I experience an extraordinary feeling of well-being. Which, I, imagine, is not unlike the relief sailors once felt upon sighting landfall after months at sea.