Just this week, nature peeked out big and signs of a seasonal change are everywhere. Viridescent laurel leaf buds spider out toward the sky and line our front lawn with the contrasting white pear blooms of our neighbor’s yard. Deep purple hyacinth blossoms encircle our entryway and you can smell their sweet scent if you linger.
Hope is in the air on the outside and as long as you resist listening to the din of news updates spilling out from the family room, there exists an opportunity to escape reality for a little while. Nothing can contrast more, this celebration of life happening beyond all of our porticos while the pandemic claims soul after precious soul.
There is a nest outside my front door that houses a family of meadowlarks. Last year they homesteaded in one of my topiaries on the porch. This year, they decided to build the nest in the crevasse between the outside wall and our porch light. My husband tried to evict them once we noticed an abundance of tiny twigs to the area, but they were not deterred, and soon after, a new, larger nest defiantly replaced the one from before.
Last week, all three of us stood inside the foyer of our home, looking out toward the nest, and congratulated this family of birds for being so resilient. The baby birds, once hatched, will have to get accustomed to the sudden sound of the front door opening, and the crashing of boxes being delivered willy-nilly, within no established time schedule.
How do we bottle the resiliency of these tenacious birds, or at least embody it for a while? Taking cues from nature, a new laser focus on the good, the beauty of regrowth and the brilliance of the stubborn, let’s lather up with what we can, to get us all where we want to be.
Comments