I walk in the mornings. Somehow I knew that it would save me, my body moving forward in space while my heart was reaching back over the ocean. My shoes are old but barely used, bought on an assignment with Remi in Vancouver many years ago with the aim of exploring further afield.
I follow the sidewalk circling the blocks of the subdivision, fast-paced, arms swinging. It is a movement I remember from my past, even further ago, when, penniless, I would head up through Central Park for an hour and a half, chasing the chimera of an adult self not yet born. The houses I pass these days are closed up. I can never understand it for they are all lived in. For some reason, people seem to want to say, “We aren’t home.” It is the opposite of what I want.
When I first arrived back to the States, I brushed snow out of my eyes, then the crocuses rose; now the trees wave and I swipe away the heat. It is Monday and I am listening to Tara Brach speak calming words in a podcast, spooling out a future of possibilities, through borrowed headphones. Buddhist insights mixed with pragmatic psychology. I am so focused that I nearly crush the little half moon on the sidewalk, blowing sideways, tumbleweed. Pause pressed, I bend down, sunglasses lowered, to see.
It is a fallen birds nest. I straighten back up, hand perplexedly on hip, to discern from which tree. But it is stolidly in the middle of a nowhere. My nowhere. I crouch back and pick it up, unthinkingly. Now it is scented with me.
It must have been quite comfortable with its lining of cotton, puffed and shredded, a true find for a mama bird, welcoming. This light thing, so fragile in my hands. Grass carefully bended and pecked into shape. “Little by little, the bird makes its nest.” This is a phrase that Remi and I shared so often, almost like a code. “Petit à petit, l’oiseau fait son nid.” We built our lives over fifteen years and did so with such pride that only the first three words were needed to be uttered for an understanding to be passed between us like a wink.
I let my heart fall into the softness between the twigs to rest, put the nest down and kept walking, my face whipped taught like a sheet. “Little by little”…”little by little”…”little by little” on Monday morning.
And then that rhythm of thought and footfall, repeating like a dance or pulsing like lights in the nightclub, one filled with bodies twisting joyfully. Friends and loves, flirtations and fantasy projecting into a future too, one stretching towards a weekend feel of forever, also with such pride, also solid yet free, but sucked so quickly into the void, bullet-snuffed.
“Petit à petit” my tears could fall, sliding down my chin to tap the concrete.
It didn’t make sense but it did to me, that eventually – not immediately but eventually – I changed my steps stumbling to come back to that nest. I chose a tree, the one with the right branches and tucked it up as high as I could reach. It was too late, too late for so many things but I wanted it to be safe. So that maybe, somehow, one day those possibilities that I had held between within my fingers could be wishing true fulfilled.
I check on the nest every day when I pass by just to make sure it is
still there and am thinking of it now, looking out the window as an
early summer rain comes down. Because it is so fragile. As we are, yet
strong enough to make a home out of the best in us. And we do.
I am sending so much
Love and Strength to the families, friends and loved ones of the
victims of the terrorist attack in Orlando.
Much Love to you Joan.
Much Mahalo, Bill. I keep meaning to send you an email.
Thank you Victoria.
Thank you so kindly, Marianne. I do hope that you are right. My best to you.
As you both have done!
Beautifully written. Nothing to add, nothing to remove.
Sending you wishes for grace with every breath. r&g
Well Heather, I'm glad that everyone else has duly complimented you on the poetry/figurative connotations/spiritual implications/etcetera of birds' nests, but?
It's 7:38 in the morning, here in this 220 year old house in North Carolina…..and I have finally (after six weeks) closed the front windows (which are in what was originally a 2-room,2-story log cabin in which the first governor's spinster daughter, Miss Polly Burke, taught school for thirty years.
In short? We're not ALLOWED to install screens or storm windows on houses this old…..at least not in The Hysterical District. I don't think I'm even allowed to hang a bird-feeder from the front (it wouldn't be "authentically" 18th century). In any case?….three years ago, the windows were open during the refreshingly cool and lovely days of May….and, of course, two pairs of Carolina Wrens (they're tiny, but VERY bossy little birds) decided that the perfect place to build their nests was at the top of the pulled-up roman-shades in the room. so?…..I endured about six weeks (even when the weather had turned really hot, as it has now) of paying the mortgage on what is essentially a bird-nursery.
The same thing has happened three years in a row (somehow, these birds remember where they last nested or were raised). I sat with a visiting friend in the front room about a week ago, and he asked "What the hell is all that NOISE?". I told him that it was probably about ten fledgling birds bawling for food, and at least four adult carolina wrens, shrieking their outrage over our invading THEIR nesting site.
In any case (and I know my birds), everyone seems to have grown up and left through the open windows, as of two days ago. I just closed the windows this morning. I don't even want to think about what the air conditioning bill will be this month……but would you want to close the window and try to go to sleep at night, knowing that you were starving a batch of little birds to their early death???????
All of which is as nothing compared to sitting yesterday at the kitchen table (having gotten up at 5 am, and wearing a pair of boxer-shorts and a t-shirt)….., all of a sudden, I discovered that a terrified (or, more probably, just profoundly stupid) possum was under the table, in one of the terrier's beds. I guess it got in through the courtyard door, which I'd left open over night. All hell broke loose as the ugly thing went skittering over my bare feet and ran into the other part of the house. I spent a good half hour trying to corral the dogs and persuade the thing to get OUT of the house, via any of the seven outside-doors I'd opened. Possums are very primitive….and it shows.
Well, enough of this. I've had enough of nature (at least when it's decided to live in my house) for a while. I think you should visit here. you'd like it, I expect.
As sincerely as ever,
David Terry
http://www.davidterryart.com
Dorothy, I am so moved and humbled by your response. If anyone has inspired me to try and step up to the plate it is Ellie. She truly is even more amazing than I thought through her wonderful writing. She suggested from the beginning that I be honest here with what was going on with me. I was a bit too much of a wreck to do so for a while but she was right- it both feels better and everyone has been amazing.
Thank you again.
Much love to you both.
Merci, Coco.