The Joy They Offer--Antidotes to Despair

Cheering on baby bird's is a lesson in hoping for the best and bearing witness to the joy in small things.

As I type this, a mother American Robin sits outside a north-facing window on a nest of babies just hatched in the past day or so.

Little bald and blind baby Robins whose beaks are cartoonishly large for the size of their heads and whose necks seem too astonishingly thin to hold their beak- heads up, poke up every now and then to receive gifts of dangling worms from their parent's beak. Their wobbly, bobbling, flop about their nest reception of said insects make them even more cartoonish.

And yet, impossible as this might sound, here they are outside my bathroom window in their lopsided, hastily but magnificently constructed abode atop a motion sensor light on the back of our neighborhood home.

Our backyard has always had Robin families living there. So many delightful trees border our property and our neighbors’ that it looks like a little wood behind our homes. Yet, this is the first time we have noticed a visible nest and now, sitting on my bed, if I open the bathroom door, I have a bird’s- eye view of the busy Robin family goings on. To say this watching is a delightful pastime would be a gross understatement.

This is the fourth bird family we have had the great pleasure of watching raise their young this summer, thus far. In addition to the Robins, there are the glisteningly black, red-mouth American Crow young who made short work of three rows of beans we’d planted, as well as two families of Black-capped Chickadees who made a little nest box near our entry way their home from which eight young were fledged between them. Two in the first family a month or so ago and two weeks ago, we witnessed each of the second pairing's six young take their first flight to the roof and then the nearby Maple, in the Great Beyond. Seeing as they each excitedly, finally, poked their little fuzzy heads out to look and see what all the great fuss was their parents were chirping about was decidedly wonderful. Hearing their raspy little voices first sing out their names was so heartwarming. Donald-duckish, like if your mouth is full of cotton and you are trying to whistle out chickadee-dee-dee is how I might describe their hoarse calls. Had you heard them yourself, you may well do better than this description. Still, two full weeks later, we can hear them calling about the yard as their parent trains them on life outside the nest box. We stop to listen every time because our heart’s need the joy they offer.

This blessed world is so filled with the great want of life. To not bear witness to the enormity of what is being lost and loudly name what beauty still remains, like these bird’s we’re watching, feels like a sort of madness to me. I wish you a portioned share in the burden and the joy!

Be well,

Jill