My daughter raced into the house an hour ago, cradling something in her hands.  “Mom,” she yelled in her Come Now voice.  She widened her fingers a smidge to reveal pin feathers and a damp back.  “Ilanna’s dog had it between its paws.  Ilanna’s dad checked it all over and said it seemed fine —  no broken wings or legs or anything.”  “Oh!” I said. “It’s a fledgling…. mourning dove,” I said, taking a closer look at the small gray bird whose feathers didn’t completely cover its scrawny body.  My daughter chattered on. “Her dad said he thought it looked O.K. but he he said he’s no expert.”  I am.  Sort of.  I’ve been listed under a wildlife rehabilitator’s license for over twenty years.  That means I never took the formal test, but I did pass a six week workshop that taught me how to care for orphaned and injured wildlife.  And, one big lesson I learned was that adult birds will feed their fledgling on the ground for up to two weeks. What my daughter cradled in her hands now was a fledgling.  What we needed to do was rig a nest for this foundling:  Cool Whip container with holes poked in the bottom for drainage and in the sides for stringing to a tree.  We filled the “nest” with leaves and grass and a few seeds and returned to the place the fledgling was found:  Ilanna’s yard.  We knew we couldn’t leave the bird on the ground because Ilanna’s dog would only go after it again.  Hence, the nest which would keep the bird well out of the dog’s reach and still allow the parent birds access to their beloved baby.  When we got to Ilanna’s yard, we got lucky.  Ilanna’s family has a vegetable garden surrounded by an eight foot fence, compete with latched door.  Perfect.  The baby could hop between sunny spots and shade and even peck around for its own food.  Too, it would be safe from predators and completely accessible to the parents.  We placed the fledgling mourning dove under a wide brimmed pumpkin leaf.  Blinking its ink-black eyes at us serenely, it nestled deeply into the shadows of the pumpkin vine.  I looked around but couldn’t see the four ink-black eyes that were surely watching us from the trees.

I’m what you might call a travel addict, but my addiction is also a big part of my reason for living.  This April found me wandering market aisles in the Amazon, then floating downriver to a monkey sanctuary.  June I was in Masaii Land tracking wild dogs.  Later that month I wined & dined in San Francisco. South Carolina scalded me with its oven-like temperatures in August.  I baked even more in Italy in late August.  The past twenty years have been equally packed equally with traditional cultures and ever-changing time zones.  October was supposed to be the my month with Mongolian horsemen and nomadic falcon hunters, but I finally said, “Stop!”  A couple of minor health hits officially postponed the journey, but I also breathed a relaxed sigh.  There’s nothing more fun than dropping into a country whose peoples and customs are ancient and whose wildlife and wildlands are hypnotizing and narcotic, but I’m also at the end of my tether energy-wise and I’m interested to see whether vast stores of energy will come bubbling up when I’m not changing time zones, hiking rocky mountains lugging heavy camera equipment, being surrounded by wild animals and attempting to be polite in different languages (not that I speak any other actual languages beyond a few words.  I’m talking the universal language of smiles & gestures).  So, a new experiment has begun for me:  healthy eating, exercise, and staying in one city for the next few months. 

It’s definitely an addiction.  As soon as the relief passed that I was staying home instead of heading to Mongolia, I immediately tensed up and felt a burning longing to see Mongolia, that land I’d long dreamt about.  And, then I started compulsively getting excited about ideas for other trips.  The woman with whom I was supposed to travel to Mongolia decided to photograph bears in Yellowstone in place of our trip and I immediately thought, “I’ll go, too!”  then remembered i had to get my health back up to “Excellent” if possible, and also remembered my experiment in slowing down, concentrating, and re-energizing. 

I remember when my kids got out of baby & toddler stages how thrilled & surprised I was to find all this energy coming back.  I’d been so exhausted for so many years tending babies & tiny children that I hadn’t even realized how exhausted I’d become or just how pleasant & easy a day could be.  I’m cautiously hoping for something like that. We’ll see!