Ping Pong Babies and Touching God

Just the other day I came upon a baby bird on the path to the house next door. I almost stepped on it right as I spied it, in fact it is quite amazing I saw it at all. It was a baby junco, with feathers, about the size of a ping pong ball. It had stormed the night before and apparently the bird had fallen out of its nest.  Looking around however I could not see one. I did see two adult birds, parents, chittering in the rhododendron beside the path. So sorry little bird I said as I went on my way down to the little cabin next door.

I came back about thirty minutes later and checked to see if the baby was still there. It was. Not making a noise. Still with feathers. Still the size of a ping pong ball. Going about my business I went into the house Several minutes later I came back out to study the problem.

We have a feeder in the back of our house. Not something that is easy to do with the squirrels, chipmunks, raccoons and even bears that all love bird food. And there are all kinds of birds that frequent the feeder, including juncos. In fact juncos are about the most numerous guests to the box feeder; they entertain us daily as we drink our coffee. So if they are so numerous why worry about one baby bird I thought.

I think it was precisely because they do entertain us that I could not get that ping pong feathered ball of a bird off my mind. Juncos are the first to hop in the feeder in the morning, never waiting until it is actually hung but jumping on board as I swing it out away from the squirrels. They watch us in the bedroom as we let the dogs out and wait patiently for someone to bring out the feeder. They visit all day long.

In addition to birds we have big gray squirrels who manage to jump anywhere I hang the feeder. There is no such thing as out of reach. We have smaller red squirrels who are new to the environs this year who are also miniature acrobats. And we have what I can only think are baby squirrels who seem like they are going to be gray but have a tinge of brown still. I am not sure. But these little squirrels have become our latest entertainment.

I sit on the deck a lot at this time of year. Reading or writing or sometimes just sitting. Last night I was writing as the sky darkened and the thunderstorms rolled in. This morning I am in the kitchen, my usual winter nesting place, because although it is spring it is still raining.  Otherwise I would be out on the deck drinking coffee with the birds. The little squirrels hate that.

These squirrels are new this year. They have found the feeder and have become very territorial. I know this because whenever I am outside they spend an inordinate amount of time barking at me. Yelling I think. Tail twitching, racing up and down the tree next to the deck, and jumping on and off the railing. But unlike the older gray squirrels, they will not jump into the feeder if I am outside. So this has become my new entertainment. Simple pleasures.

We also have new birds this spring.  In April we were inundated with tiny pine siskins. They flocked to the feeders and when there was no available opening they just hovered around the deck waiting for spaces to open up. And they crapped all over the railing, the deck and some of the furniture. For several days I did not put the feeder out as a way to encourage them to move on. It seemed to work. Or maybe I was lucky and it was just time for them to continue their migration.

Just recently a catbird, or several catbirds, have arrived to dine with us. They are pretty birds, with that unusual call that reminds me of my old siamese cat; hence the name. I am not sure how many there are, certainly a lighter colored female and a darker gray male but we only see them one at a time. They are somewhat territorial, so they are trying to work it out with the other bigger birds who have prior claim, specifically the cardinals and the rufous-sided toweys. So far so good. But it is the juncos that are the constant in our backyard, even more than the chickadees, and I feel a certain loyalty to them. So back outside I go.

This time I could see the baby was shaking, cold now that it was on the ground and probably hungry and thirsty. I spoke reassuringly to the parents then came back inside to talk to my husband. "There is a baby junco outside."

"That's too bad" he said, "does it have feathers? There's not much we can do."

"I know, I cannot even see a nest it might have fallen out of, but I cannot just leave it there." My husband closes his reader and looks at me. "What do you want to do?"

"I have an old nest. Maybe we can put him in it and try to put it back in the tree. I have to do something."

The baby was still there when we returned with the nest. I gently scooped it up and it immediately opened its mouth wide hoping to be fed. A parent bird swooped by my head. I plopped it in the nest and handed the whole thing to my husband who put it in a fork of the rhododendron. Being that he is taller than me it was our best hope. Then we went back inside.

A short while later some cousins showed up for a lunch date. The carpark is in front of the house where we had put the nest so as we went out to greet our guests I went over to check on the baby. It was quiet for the first time. No parents chitting or hopping around on the branches. The nest was on the ground upside down. I picked it up. There was no baby.

So maybe we saved the baby. I don't know. It was nowhere to be seen, and even our dogs had no whiff of it when they came out moments later. I am not sure what happened. Maybe the parents were able to move the baby from the nest. Although if that was true why couldn't they have picked it up off the ground? Again I don't know. But I do know that I felt better doing something rather than letting the inevitable happen. And I know a lot of baby birds die every year; in fact it is probably good that a lot of them don't make it. But this year, in this place, perhaps one baby didn't die but made it back to the nest for a second chance.

I will watch the juncos more closely this summer wondering if one of them is little ping pong. Sparing the parent birds their obvious grief lightened my own load that day. But holding that tiny feather-weight baby in my hands for a brief few seconds felt like touching God. It was a transcendent moment. Who knew?

Musings on High School

This year I, along with an old friend, have decided to initiate a high school reunion. Not unusual one might say. People have them all the time. I have gone to two with my husband in the last eight years; the third one I politely declined. But for me there is a feeling that while a high school reunion might be filled with possibilities it also might be fraught with missteps.

Our high school was in New Jersey and the fall of 1964 saw the welcoming of our freshman class which numbered just around three hundred. The school was overcrowded and undergoing an addition. Consequently the freshman went to classes in the afternoons from twelve noon until five pm. Finally, having arrived at high school we were denied access; all the upperclassmen attended in the morning.

The school was fed by two middle schools, called junior highs back then, from two neighboring townships. I had moved to New Jersey the year before and had attended one of the junior highs for my eighth grade year. One year later I found myself with equally as many new people to meet and try to get to know. In retrospect I think we might have gotten closer as a class just because we were alone in the school all those afternoons of that first year.

Our sophomore year the new addition opened and we joined the upperclassmen as well as the incoming freshman. A lot of people to sift through. It was a challenge but also fun as we found ourselves in classes with older boys. And older girls?

I really don't remember much about those first two years; my experience comes more into focus during my junior year when I became an officer of the class, was inducted into the National Honor Society, joined the women's softball team and joined the ranks of the dating. It was during this year that I became aware of leaders in the school and gravitated towards becoming one.

Our class lacked focus and leadership was part of the problem. While there was a class dues structure to raise funds, the school also facilitated fundraising events to accumulate the necessary monies to provide for senior year expenses.

Traditionally, the senior class treasury paid for everyone's yearbook, for their senior prom and for a senior trip. Our class was woefully underfunded halfway through our junior year and it became apparent that we would have to make some tough choices. Being very vocal I got drafted to run for senior class president. Supported by some close friends, we decided to make a run for it, to raise some consciousness and enough dollars to have the kind of senior year every class had had before us.

The system was skewered towards the senior class as most of the fundraising was their prerogative. So while it wasn't as impossible as it seemed we had been lazy in paying our dues, and inspiring people to both pay back dues and work at various fundraising events was a challenge.

And yet it wasn't. We had great fundraising events. A battle of the bands, a dance before school, the traditional Junior-Senior Variety Show, the  refreshment stand at the football games. There are sure to be other events that I am forgetting but those stand out in my mind.

Having completed almost all of my core curriculum, I took two art classes that year. The first period art class became our war council room, and we made posters and banners to spread throughout the school at home football games and every imaginable fundraising opportunity. We became Mighty Great 68 and it was a mighty great year.

We sailed into graduation with money to spare, enough to make a gift to the school, and had a fabulous time spending it. And when that night finally came I felt connected to people in way I never had as an army brat moving, moving all the time. I remember sharing my feelings with a friend as we escaped a graduation party and drove around in his brother's convertible. I was very sad to see high school end. And I was right to be.

It would take me over twenty years to find a group of friends with whom I would forge those kind of connections. And because I was an army brat I walked away from high school without maintaining any of those early friendships. It is now, almost fifty years later, that I realize what an amazing experience high school was for me, what a loss those relationships has been.

High School is the place we come into as children and leave having had our first brush with adulthood. For many of us those years are fraught with pain and not fitting in; for me they became filled with a sense of belonging that I had never experienced before. I was right to be sad that it was over; but it was also right to walk away, to know that I wasn't ready to have those kinds of connections in my life.

I envy those who are ready, and do maintain those feelings of connection. I have several friends who get together with old high school buddies on a regular basis. There is always the danger of being limited by those old friendships, of not being seen for anything other than what you were at eighteen, but there is also the feeling of being known.

When my older brother died five years ago I felt like I was cut loose from my moorings. He was the last person who knew me as a child, and had witnessed me becoming the adult I am today. I still grieve that loss.

And so as I, we, work towards this fall reunion I look forward to seeing people who knew me as a fledgling adult. I look forward to seeing that alien girl/woman again as a part of me. Because those years have informed so much of what I have done with my life and who I am today. At a time when I feel myself to be fully grown, deciding if I have one more grand work left in me, it will be nice to visit with people who shared my first grand work.

The trepidation comes with fear of trying too hard to entertain, to be the center or a group which is no longer, to be something for everyone. The joy will come with being a facilitator for a new group and to stand back and see what happens. No matter what, the stretch will come from being with people who were a witness to my emerging self; and to trust them with who I am today. And to be a witness to their lives. If you are open to it, everything comes full circle.