Dear Bluebird

You’ve visited twice now, nestling your round little body snugly in the young branches of my crab-apple tree. And each time it is as if someone was staring hard through my window, boring his eyes into my body, willing me to look up. I have startled from my reading and typing to find you sitting just so outside the glass. But when I glance your way, you are not even looking at me but are lost somewhere, facing south, and resting on my branch.

You are not supposed to be here. You prefer grasslands, they say, and the state of Vermont. I can offer you neither, but still you come to my window frame. I have never seen you before, only your wild, awful brother the blue jay, who is not even a brother at all. And it is February. Shouldn’t you still be vacationing somewhere, eating tropical grubs with umbrellas lanced into their backs? Here, the drifts of snow in my yard still nearly reach the branches where you huddle, and I can’t imagine that there are many insects for you to enjoy.

“It’s all part of nature, you see.” That’s what my Dad used to say when trying to explain why the birds came back when the snow was still covering the ground or the crocus flowers bloomed long before spring. Bluebird, you know something that I cannot possibly fathom. Suddenly you and your fellow birds sing me awake on these cold winter mornings when I had become so accustomed to the quiet force of the snow.

Now here you are, a harbinger, when my faith has just about given out and my heart has grown as heavy as the icy sludge I shovel. Spring will come. Your presence assures me.

My dad used to call my sister “Birdie”, and claim that the northern cardinals calling “birdie, birdie, birdie” were singing just for her. I’m not sure where that nickname came from but I remember the day my mom found a pile of birdseed behind her door and the tell-tale evidence that my sister had eaten some. Perhaps that is where it all began.

My own children feasted in secret on bouillon one day, mistaking the cubes’ bright golden wrappings for candy. No nicknames for them, just a few giant glasses of water to wash down the sodium deluge. And the youngest still remembers: “Dat candy taste yucky, mommy.”

But I digress. Somewhere between the winters of my childhood and the hidden birdseed and the fresh adventures of my fledglings lies a secret. It is etched in my heart as sure as the natural rhythm of the bluebird that appears on a branch in my yard. There is a connection here.

It is locked somehow in my baby’s simple nods as answers to questions that require a choice. “Seany, do you want ham or turkey?” He nods his head with a twinkle in his eye. His grandfather did the same thing. But how could my young son possibly know that? My dad drove me batty for years answering questions that way, and now it is my son’s turn. It makes me laugh and marvel.

Somehow, bluebird, you understand this too. Your knowledge has been passed down in the muscle memory of many generations, even if you are a little off track this year. Perhaps Vermont this winter is too snowy even for you.

Before you flutter away, I grab my youngest so he can see. “Burdie, mommy.” He lunges as though the window will give way and he will palm a new pet. You turn slightly at my son’s squeal and then stare in the window at us both. I hold him close as he squirms to reach for you and you lift yourself gently off the branch; it’s all part of nature, you see.

Melting Ice

“Wahoo!!!” they yell as they race to the cul de sac where the snowplow’s giant gift awaits. The snow goes flying as the kids scramble up the hill to release some pent up energy after a long day of school. I kind of wish I could join in.

Watching from the dining room window, I see a King and Queens of the Mountain, clamoring for position on a surprisingly warm January day. Like my sisters and I played so many years ago, pushing each other off giant mounds of wood chips or top soil or snow, whatever my father’s delight for the day.

On today’s mountain, I can see a reflection of those same smiling faces, but I am too far away to hear the yips of delight and the screams of the three youngsters at play. They aren’t really my own children, but they grow in my heart and on this pile of dirty snow. They are like tender shoots of new connections, forged by mashed potatoes and macaroni and the earth’s most giant muddy sand box.

The oldest girl is a quieter version of my pushy daughter, but comes out of her shell with her siblings when she thinks no eyes can see. Her brother frolics like MY son, a few months different in age and not so much in attitude. And the youngest girl, a sprite from the sea who is just a half stroke behind, races up the hill on the heels of her siblings.

All around them, soggy green grass struggles to right itself after the weight of the snow and its melting. The worst kind of dingy, trapped between the beauty of freshly-fallen flakes and the electric green of spring. But the kids don’t mind. They make snow-balls striped with brown and hurl them and each other around the hill.

And as most afternoons of play on mountains of snow end, an injury ceases the game. A trip on the snow pile and a face plant in the muddy ice pushes the eldest into role of mother as she shuttles her youngest sister the few driveways back home.

And I see in her the tenderness of my own daughter in times of need. The stubbornness and bravado of a first grade girl melts like the snow when a sibling cries. And the dull green grass they trample on their way back home echoes the promise of spring. For them and for their mommies. Spring will erase the giant snow mountain and the cold in our hearts, and it will be a springboard as these tender shoots continue to grow.