Light Dawns Over Marblehead

September—and early fall—upon us, I slept with my bedroom window open last night. At dawn this morning, three voices woke me up. Pre-coffee obviously, it took me a few moments to grok what I was hearing; conveniently, the still-undetermined creatures just outside my window repeated their call-and-response long enough for me to decode: a young man and a young woman encountered a turkey and the turkey and the young woman were having a moment.

Some background to this groggy moment: Like the bear invasion in Vermont, like coyotes gobbling up the household pets of more leafy greater-Boston communities should those pets wander outside, turkeys now share my densely-populated Somerville neighborhood. Well, actually, just like those intrusive and insouciant and fearless bears and coyotes, turkeys don’t “share.” Ask any impatient driver who has hooted at a mother turkey and her offspring as they slooowy cross a busy street at rush-hour. Or the unfortunate young man in Harvard Square sent to the hospital recently because he’d mistakenly thought turkeys were like seagulls or a pigeons; you could just shoo them away. Um, nope.

More background: Like many women, should I hear a male’s and a female’s raised voices, I am instantly on High Alert. Do I need to grab my robe, noisily and dramatically open my front door, phone in hand, be a sudden and stern presence? (It’s happened.)

But this is what I want to write about: despite how confusing this scenario had been, and how half-asleep I was, happily and joyfully I knew that I knew. Yes, male voice, strident, loud, blustery, yes, female voice, more gentle, soothing, appeasing. So, then, yes, of course! Grab my robe. But then, hmmm, that third voice, that back and forth between the female and the whatever. Who, what was it?

It was that unseen woman’s mollifying tone and how she’d repeated a one-syllable call that called up a memory. (Eventually. First I had to foggily conclude that the third voice wasn’t human.) Like my neighbors, I’d heard that third-party’s sound before. Lo, light dawned over Marblehead: That’s a young woman who knows not to mess with a turkey! That’s a turkey actually responding to her call!?  (Later I  learned, that sound is known as a cluck.)

There are so many aspects to getting old that suck. Like, as a friend and I agreed just yesterday, watching dear friends get old, frail, confused, too. But, oh, the joy to realize that over the decades you’ve learned a thing or two.