“Hold on, I want to close this window. The birds are driving me crazy with their incessant chatter. It’s five in the morning and I can hardly hear myself talk. There. At least the rain has cleared. Why are you calling me? It’s five a.m.”

“I saw your light go on. From my kitchen window, you know – the one above the porch.”

“Oh. Oh, now I see your light too. Yes, I’m in my kitchen here. I think I’ve been up for hours. I cannot stop thinking. I’m counting everything that’s gone. Do you ever do that? The list keeps growing. I am the lone survivor of a past that is so lost it could only be found in pieces – in the faded pages of some old storybook, some discarded tome about that girl I used to be and the characters around her. Oh my. My life is a soggy old thing trampled in the rain. It’s nothing but phrases in puddles. Even remembering memories is like swimming through fog. There’s my brother Tom, standing there with suds all over his car, and our old dog, Hudson, flopped in the flower bed. The images slide into tatters. There’s my first date and the skating I loved. Roommates and college friends – probably most are dead now and I cannot even remember their names. Not only that . . . Hold on, I’m going to make some coffee. I’m not prepared . . . ”

“I have coffee, if . . .”

“No, I don’t mean coffee. I have coffee. I mean I am not prepared for what’s coming – this loss after loss after loss. People I loved. Places I never got to. Books I never read. Or wrote. And it’s not only personal. I think if the world were at least a little familiar, we could bear the personal losses – the way our parents and their parents did, back when the home, instead of the Internet, was where life began and ended – where we learned the little cultural things, like writing thank you notes, folding towels so the edges don’t show, ironing a shirt, sitting up straight in a chair. Oh my. Whatever I can teach my children and grandchildren today does not apply to anything. Even grammar is superfluous. You know, it’s no wonder we have these childish polarities of opinions in our country. There is no grammatical mechanism left for structuring complex ideas into intelligible explanations. We’ve lost the form for thinking. Remember the subordinate clause, and how it could articulate a nuance of an independent thought? Texting did it in. And when did ‘text’ become a verb anyway? Oh my. I don’t disagree that technology systems can be useful – providing there are young people around who are patient enough to explain them. But such time it all takes! You and I are of the generation of people who had to learn both ways. First, we were students of our parents, and now we are students of our children. I miss that chronological allegiance. Do you know what I mean? That’s a big loss on my list. You know?”

“Hmmm . . . ah . . . it’s not my primary interest, so to speak.”

“And I miss watching respectable news. Remember civility? Honest pride and earned advancement, acceptance without sarcasm, the honor of truth? Gentility? Wait a minute. Where is that box of cereal – oh, here it is, right where I put it. But I think the biggest one on my list comes from this sobering recognition of the fragility of everything natural. We need to be concerned about our Earth now, instead of being comforted by its constancy. Oh, how innocent we were – how unsophisticated and mindless. I don’t think I told you about my family’s cottage. Did I? I know I haven’t known you long, and we haven’t talked much. Did I mention it?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Our family spent summers in a beach house years ago – over on the western shore. Other cabins dotted the fields along the rural road that meandered up the hill. We sailed and swam and dug clams. We ran up to the tracks when the train came by, so we could wave to the conductors. A watermelon would be cooling in the natural spring-fed pool at the edge of the yard while we played kick-the-can after supper. Oh, those summer nights. My cousins still own the cottage, but they could not hold on to its aura. It sits now like a little mushroom among towering year-round homes crowded together one after the other, up the hill and along the shore. The train tracks are now a bike path, and the bikers chuckle at the frumpy, old cabin hunkered there among its overpowering neighbors. Its past is in the air, I guess, and in the spirit of those few of us who lived it. Is that all we have – the spirit of the past – to push us on? Well, it’s good to talk about it. It really is. I feel better, thanks to you. Do you have plans for the day? The sun is beginning to streak through those trees now, just since we’ve been talking.”

“No, but I heard the birds, too. They woke me up. It made me remember what my son told me about why they make such a fuss in the morning.”

“Your son Matthew?”

“Yes. Matthew. He said birds live in communities. They all know who’s around them – other birds, I mean. The first thing they want to do in the morning is to announce themselves and check in with each other. The earliest bird, all puffed up and confident, starts with: ‘I am over here, this is my place.’ And all the other birds, one by one or at the same time, chatter out their locations, announcing, ‘Here I am up in this tree over here.’ ‘And I am over here.’ ‘All’s well. I hear you. I’m awake, too.’ ‘This is where I am.’ So that’s what the ruckus is about. Matthew said it’s the spirit of the moment that matters. That’s what makes the birdsong.”

“The spirit of the moment. Oh my. Hold on, I’m cutting up this banana. Is that why you called – to tell me about the birds and what Matthew said?”

“No. I only thought of what he said because the birds woke me up. I called because I saw your light. From my kitchen window.”

Oh my. This moment. This day.