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.