tigerlily

this morning i stood in our bathroom, and opened the window wide, looking out onto the rain and the cherry tree in the garden next to our house. i looked up at the wet and juicy sky with it's heavy clouds, intermingled with blue patches. the last few days have reminded me of spring, altho we're nowhere close.

as i washed my face and started my make-up ritual, my ears kept getting hooked by what sounded like a startling amount of different birds outside in the tree. a fact made even more strange by the rain coming down. "there's a robin....that was a seagull...a crow...a house finch...a california towhee"....i began to get suspicious at the number of different songs, and something felt oddly familiar. i dried off my face and leaned against the window pane. and then i saw them, and started laughing.

two years ago, i was delighted to discover that a pair of european starlings
had taken up residence for their spring brood in between some boards of the outer wall of our house, above the bathroom window. i watched the whole process. during the courting i discovered a little known fact...that starlings mimic other birds even better than mockingbirds, but primarily as a courting ritual. the starling song itself is a glitchy high twittering that reminds me of IDM music. but they also know an astounding array of other songs that they will sing loudly, to attract a mate, and then softly and sweetly as they court. i watched the pair progress to nest building, and was proud they took my offerings of dustbunnies and hair from my brush as padding. when the babies hatched, i would hear them calling from the wall of the house, and would stand for 20 minutes at a time, watching both parents fly back and forth with food.

but then one day they were gone. it was so sudden, that i feared something had happened to the parents, or babies, or both. i saw two adults and some adolescents in a nearby street, but i had no way of knowing if it was my friends. and then last year, i didn't see them return (most birds will return to the same spot to make their nest each year) and i sadly thought the worst.

so this morning, as i watched and listened to a male starling courting a female outside the window, my heart lept with joy when the female suddenly flew up to the little pipe near the nesting spot...the same place that was her favorite perch two years ago! no ordinary starlings, these are MY starlings! a sudden feeling of ease and joy, that finally, here was something gone ok....something hopeful and surprising. knowing i would be late for work, i rested my chin on the sill and watched their love affair, unaffected by the rain, and my mind slowed down, my heart unwound, and i deepened into that place within myself that remembers her connection to the world beyond her connection with people.

such a simple thing, love. and family, children, home. the most basic of behavior. i still don't understand why it can't just be easier.

there was a rainbow this morning too...i hope you saw it.


p.s. Funktion has got THE funniest little movie ever posted in his journal right now. you've gotta check it out...my guts still hurt from laughing so hard.