Birds & Books & All the Wobbles

and yet we endure

Every Spring since I don’t remember how long - but a long time - small grey, black-headed birds have tried to build nests on the very narrow ledge under this awning over my kitchen window. (Excuse the dirty window and awning.) They would fly with bits of leaves, bark, whatever and tuck it into the indent along the perimeter of the awning. When the bits became too big for the ledge they would fall to the ground. Poor bits. Poor birds. Two Springs ago, while watching the scenario play out again, I had an idea. I tied a wire plant basket under the awning and placed leaves and palm fiber in it. Aha! I thought. Now they’ll build a nest in this basket. Nope. Not that year, not the next year, but……..Yes! This year!

For the past several weeks I’ve been a spectator to these small birds, Carolina Chickadees they are, say Mr. Google. From time to time I’d be in the kitchen and catch glimpses of a bird bringing in bits and pieces to the basket. Last week I happened to be looking out the window when one flew in and perched on the wire basket edge with a something in it’s beak - a worm or bug, a bug I think as it wasn’t long like a worm. She popped it in the nest hole and flew off. As the day progressed I’d see the bird come and go with morsels for the yet unseen baby(ies). How many heartbeats must pulse in the breast of this bird with all that coming and going! How much nurturing! The nest, I discovered on standing on a stool and looking closely, was completely enclosed like a round ball with a small opening facing the window. Now I wanted to see chicks! But without being obtrusive, how could I? A couple of days later, I got up on my stool and was looking at the nest when one of the birds (oh, I forgot to say there are definitely two.) flew up and perched on the basket and I caught a naked pink glimpse of a birdling. Hatchling? You know, a baby bird! So exciting! I’ve never been this close to a working nest before.

This morning (Sunday) as I puttered in the kitchen I watched the pair flying back and forth with food for the baby/ies and I thought about what a miracle life is and how tenuous, as well. Not just for birds but for every living thing on the planet.

Which brings me to this: Cheryl Strayed’s book, Wild, touched me in a profound way when my mother’s tenuous life was ebbing away in an ICU hospital bed in 2012. This came to mind yesterday when I was reading Jane Ratcliffe’s interview with Cheryl on her Substack, “Beyond'“. My family and I were camping out in the ICU waiting room during this time, two by two we would take week-long turns staying there, sharing space with other families of ICU patients. Cheryl’s book had just been published the month before and I read it during this stressful time, a time that seemed to stand still, to be a world unto itself. I took out the book today and looked through the pages to see if I’d written anything in the margins, underlined anything. I hadn’t. I’ve never written in margins or underlined until recently.* I think because when I first started buying my own books in my teen years, they were bought with money I made working part-time and they were precious. Money was precious. Books are still precious but now I will highlight or underline passages. But there was nothing in Wild which is ok because it was the whole of the book, every step and thought, that resonated. The details about her dying mother may escape my memory but the feelings it brought about linger still. The parallels between our mothers’ situations rang true and Cheryl’s thoughts were so in line with my own. Reading the book was a kind of soothing or support that I needed because it was too hard to talk about outside the dry statistics of the medical care that the family discussed. It helped me to read, think, but not have to spill my guts to anyone yet. I felt I had to keep my shit together. I think about rereading Wild sometimes but I don’t think I can. It’s still too soon.

It’s Monday morning now and Summer Brennan’s Essay Camp has begun. I’m in a small Twitter group of online writer friends who are checking in and supporting each other. Serendipitously, one of the essays Summer has in her list of recommended reading is by Cheryl. I swear, that woman has more wisdom laced with kindness than most and I always feel centered after reading her essays.

The little birds are flying back and forth this morning. I wonder how long it takes for babies to fledge? I wonder if I’ll see their first wobbly stance on the edge of the basket. I hope so.

Now I’m going to take my first wobbly stance at Essay Camp. Wish me luck.

*As an aside, this Substack by Jillian Hess is super interesting about marginalia. I love this Substack about all things books and journal writing.