Nests and Bird In/Bird Out

A storm raged through and shook the natural world, as it will. The beach house, standing on stilts like a water bird on tendrils legs, shook in the night. So, too, the trees. While my home remained secure, not so lucky the birds.

Not one, but two nests fell in my immediate vicinity. Sturdy, well-stocked, be-twigged, they stood no chance to Hurricane Danny. One empty, one leaving a not-so fortunate form behind.

Doors wide open, birds have started flying through the house, or wanting to take up residence. A fresh-air freak, I inhale deeply the salt air, but with it, come nature’s friends. I always identify with birds, my singing nomadic self. Social justice writer Paul Laurence Dunbar, Maya Angelou, Abbey Lincoln wrote, exclaimed, and sang about card birds singing their way to a freed self. So what about my white privilege and wide open spaces now? Eternal questions and obligations always to be worked.

In the past few years my life’s circumstances and trajectory have shifted. Windows closed, doors opened. Some painful, some powerful, some frightfully expansive. Experiencing the joy of morphing nests and being more deeply rooted right where I am - wherever that is. Beyond all the pandemic nest -fluffing, true solid nest claiming.

However, it’s no longer necessary to travel feverishly to sing, to touch lives, to participate in life, globally or otherwise. The ease of breeze and bird in/bird out. Keep your doors open - love your nest. Sing and fly with the birds - right where you are.  

But don’t hold me down just yet…after all, I am a bird too