This week I had my winter break from school and from work (since I work in a school that’s a little redundent). When my children were younger we always went on a ski vacation to a little town in Canada called Magog. Magog sits right on Lake Mempremagog and is quite a delightful quaint village. Since I didn’t ski i used my time wisely and either read, went traipsing about, took pictures, and always hit the spa. Now that my children are grown and in fact my youngest son turned 18 today we don’t take our little Candian trip anymore, and quite frankly I miss those days. With that being said since I had off this week, we no plans I wanted to do something that I had never done. I live on Long Island and it truly is a wondrous place, we the Long Island Sound, the beautiful beaches from Long Beach to Montauck with oceans from end to end, and we have parks, so I decided to visit some places I had never been, more specifically The Elizabeth Morton Wildlife Refuge Center in Sag Harbor, and it was as if I was transported to another place and time. I really wanted to go in memory of a beautiful young girl who died suddenly this past Thanksgiving, Susie loved this place and I had seen many pictures her mother had taken of her there and I wanted to see what is was about it that so captured Susie. It’s a small gem on the eastern end of Long Island that words really cannot describe, it is almost nondescript, that is until the birds come. And they do come, and they sing and then as you can see they eat. I went on Tuesday and it was a beautiful day, and in a matter of minutes there were birds eating out of our hands. We walked for about 3/4 of a mile and ended up at the beach, a beautiful beach with waters that reminded me of Mexcio, so clear and the color so extraordinary, sounds crazy I know but the winter is so lovely here I knew I had to come back.
On Thursday I took my son Dylan, because I knew that I could get him to spend a day with me if it involved animals (he is 18 today so I think most of you should understand). We headed out there, and of course Dylan listened to his music the whole time and I kept thinking, if he gets there and wants to leave, I’ll do just that, leave him there! Anyway we were prepared we our quart bag full of seeds(some nice man had given me a bag full of the right seeds that the birdies love). I didn’t think that I could find this place anymore beautiful than I had on Tuesday, but there is something magical about this quite little piece of heaven. There were so many birds and the sounds of their singing just brings a quite calm to your heart. Dylan and I talked a bit about Susie and I told him how her mom had placed strings all about the place so that the birds could make nests of them, and when I looked up my eye went straight to a bright green string tied to a bench just swinging in the breeze, and I thought I am blessed to have known a girl who even in her death could bring beauty to our lives. I will always think about Susie when I head to Sag Harbor, and I will think of the love she had for the little birdies and I will quietly thank her for bringing me to this place.
In order to see birds it is necessary to become part of the silence – Robert Lynd
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