The process
Now is the little time when I sit at my desk. There are things I should be doing: a sentence I repeat to myself over and over. Tasks, emails, sticky notes, prep, texts to send. There are crucial interruptions to look away from the screen, to space out while an ambulance blares by outside, to scratch an itch on my ankle, maybe with a pen. And still, after this, there remain tasks to do.
At a certain point in my little work time, I click on a bookmarked tab, a live stream where I watch the newly inhabited osprey nest thousands of miles away. Nothing much happens here. The osprey pair have just returned to this nest from a six month sojourn in Colombia. They show no signs of weariness through the camera lens. Together, they huddle in the spring wind, wings tucked for warmth, shaggy crests leant one beside the other. Their beaks chitter as they softly cry, a plaintive duet the live stream cannot transmit. Now and then, one of the pair hops onto the perch beside the nest, dreaming of fish in the marsh below.
I watch as one takes off, alighting toward the distant woods, which are still waking from winter, and the other looks out longingly. The lone osprey reaches with its beak for a stray twig, sticking out of the nest at an erratic angle. It is a task to be done, rearranging this small thing. The bird tries for several minutes. Why? I watch the entire time. Nothing appears to come of it. Still, it must be done. This might take hours. It might take days. It might take until the time to leave for South America again. For now, the osprey abandons its task, spreads its wings and flies out of view, toward the woods, and its mate, and hopefully fish somewhere between. Which might take minutes, or hours, or all the remaining daylight long.
In the time I have watched this, five new emails appear. Maybe I will not get to them now, today, tomorrow, before the end of the term. This is how the process goes. I daydream in osprey time, return to myself at my desk, just before my little work time is over, and click reply. By the time I click back to the other tab, the osprey pair has returned to their nest with a fresh catch of fish. They have balanced it on the twig.