The other morning I spotted a flutter of wings high in the huge tulip tree just outside my property line. Happened not to be wearing my glasses, but binoculars were an easy grab: two Red-shouldered hawks not three feet apart on a large limb.
I believe--don't know for sure--they are the mating pair that have produced chicks here the past 5 seasons. The incubation period lasts around 5 weeks give or take a few days, the nestling stage 6, maybe 7 weeks. About half of young birds are expected to survive their first year. To live 10 years, for a hawk is a good run.
My youngest neighbor now totters to a finish line of sorts, his first birthday. He is one. Somehow saying 'one' to signify a lifespan doesn't seem real. In sum, to be a one-year-old.
As I measure time--or better, experience--his life is one trip around the sun. Not that he could comprehend such a thought. Of course. But 584 million miles traveled, now that is something remarkable. I guess my 40+ trillion is something to note as well.
By the way, the recently launched Webb telescope is not quite a million miles out there. Mere child's play.
My little neighbor has lived a full seasonal rotation, again not much aware of a span much important to me. I live Housman's "fifty springs" more deeply now as I think to have, what, 15 or 20 to come? Can't know for sure.
Rather than one, a heftier sounding number, the youngster's 52 weeks. My 3556, a life lived, so to speak. I am reminded of Oliver Burkeman's approximation: "Certainly you may get lucky: make it to ninety, and you'll have had 4700 weeks". Eighty gets you 4160. Come on 90.
As for the little guy next door, he would see his 90th in 2111. Twenty-one-eleven. Right now, he is one. So it begins. One.
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