A wind storm ripped through the valley a few days ago and sometime between the midnight howling of the coyotes and the early morning trill and thrum of redwing blackbirds I heard the crack and whoosh of falling trees. The next day I found, stretched through the middle of the heron rookery a newly wind- felled cottonwood and there on the ground, the huge tangly branched nest with broken eggs, the blue shells still spattered with yellow yolk.

Over the last two weeks the herons have been returning to the rookery and are busy building and repairing nests, the old established couples reuniting and reclaiming their places, the young males hopefully proffering a particularly fine twig to perspective females. There is much flying about, loud grumblings and neck stretching threats when rivals fly too close to an already claimed nest space. One or another flies out to hunt the nearby field for emerging ground squirrels or fish from the ice cleared river. Meanwhile, back at the rookery long necks stretch and contort to preen feathers into place. Then a sudden cacophony as a red tail hawk flies through on a recon mission, razor sharp heron beaks clacking warnings at the interloper.

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As the sun sinks lower more hunters return. A male settles onto a branch above a nest. The female stands and stretches her neck up to clack beaks. Loud gurgles and harsh cooing intensifies, wings flap and the male hovers over the female. The mating is quick, then both smooth their ruffled feathers, settle side by side into the nest and watch the darkening night sky.

The windstorm of the coronavirus pandemic has blown through our world, toppling all our well laid plans and breaking open our day to day lives. In other crises–fire, hurricane, earthquake or flood, even 9/11, we have rushed headlong into getting things “back to the way they were.” But this time we may not be able to get “back to the way things were.” And perhaps we shouldn’t even try., This crisis has really put the flaws in the way things are into sharp relief. I’m hoping, given the time we have now for reflection, that we can, as individuals, businesses and a country, use this hiatus to really do some soul searching and re-imagine different priorities and a different lifestyle. My mother talked about the depression and how that changed everything–made people more self-sufficient, more frugal, put the emphasis back on relationships and community and being more generous and empathetic to others, even when people had so little to share. She was horrified to see how our society changed in the prosperity that followed the war–how we became, not citizens, but consumers. How we stopped making do and being grateful for what we had, but became unhappy and dissatisfied always wanting more and more. And she was so disheartened when, on 9/11 the rallying cry was to go out and go shopping. I never really took her complaints seriously until now. I can see how so much of my life is consumed with consuming, and how, my generation feels so entitled.

The tree has fallen, our nest lies shattered on the ground. Let’s look to a different, stronger tree in which to rebuild and lay out our priorities.