July | 2022 | Dare Boldly

I watch a crow sitting on our backyard fence. He looks at me sitting at my desk, secure behind the window.

Our home is a walkout. I’m one floor up. Not close enough.

I open the upper deck door, step out, all while doing my best not to take my eyes off the crow. I’ve got a nest full of eggs below to protect.

The crow eyes me. I eye him back.

He caws (interesting. I always call these predators ‘he’). Hops down from the fence onto the ground. Casually, he hops along the fence line bringing him closer to the nest.

I yell, not to loudly. My neighbours are sleeping. “Go away.”

He does nothing.

I yell louder, disregarding the fact it’s 6:30 am. “Go away!”

He caws again. Takes another hop or two along the grass, flaps his glossy black wings and lifts off. A few swoops of his wings and he lands on a branch of a tree on the other side of the fence.

“Caw. Caw.”

I sigh. Where is the mommy robin?

I go downstairs to check the nest.

I open the patio door. Peek out, looking up to the beam where she’s built her nest.

She’s there. Sitting on her eggs.

I breathe a sigh of relief.

All is well.

But man. This Crow Patrol gig is tiring!

Perhaps, I need to trust in Mother Nature’s grand design and let her have her way. Because, let’s face it, ‘Mothers Know Best”.

At least, that’s what a taxicab driver told me in January after flying home from a visit to The LIttles in Vancouver. We were driving through a freak snowstorm at 1am. No traffic but the roads were slick. Windshield wipers beating a steady tattoo that did little to improve the visibility, he told me the story of returning to his native Sudan to tell his parents he was getting married to a woman in Canada only to discover, they already had his wedding planned, just not to the woman he intended.

“I was angry at my mother when she told me I was getting married in four days to a woman she’d chosen,” he said while using one hand to clear his windshield of condensation. “That was 10 years ago and I couldn’t be happier. My wife is the perfect woman for me.”

My eyes were peeled straight ahead at the road that was barely visible through the windscreen as if my looking so intently would make his driving more… safe.

Oblivious to my focus on the road, he laughed, gave another swipe at the condensation on the window.,”Just goes to show, Mothers know best!” 🙂

Namaste

I am sitting on our lower patio. Through the thick undergrowth separating our lawn from the river bank, I spy glimpses of the river flowing past. Occasionally, I hear the voices of rafters and kayakers floating past. Their laughter fills the air, as welcome as the birdsong in the trees. Above the sky is blue. I hear the hum of city traffic. It forms part of the melody of life flowing all around me.

In the beam supporting our upper deck, the mother robin has built another nest. She sits quietly above while I sit on the couch about 8 feet away from her. She is nurturing a new brood while I savour the joy of her presence and the miracles upon which she so patiently sits.

It was last Saturday we noticed the possibility of a new nest being built. A few twigs on the supporting beam. Lots of grasses and twigs strewn along the edge of the patio. “I think she’s building her next nest,” my beloved said.

I was a bit perplexed; First we gave up our front door, making guests come through the garage. Now, she wants me to give up the lower patio?

Sunday morning I came downstairs to check if C.C. was right. He was. The nest was completely constructed.

“We are going to have to find a way to cohabit,” I told mama bird when I saw her sitting on the edge of one of my flower pots.

She didn’t answer. But, she didn’t fly away either.

It was mostly a rainy week and as the finches have flown the nest on our upper deck, what time we did spend outdoors, we spent there.

And then this morning, I decided I needed to blow the leaves and such off the patio, put out the cushions and settle in for a day of relaxation in the shade beneath the upper deck.

Mama robin was in situ.

I didn’t notice her at first. I thought she might have abandoned the nest last weekend when she realized we were frequent visitors to the area.

I tell myself she got my message about cohabitation.

I used the blower to clear off the patio. She didn’t move.

I put the pillows out. She stayed put.

A neighbour came over to chat. We stood on the lawn near where she’s roosting. She still didn’t move.

I tell myself it’s because she knows she’s safe here. That I believe in magic and miracles. That I celebrate the mystery of life.

Every moment in life counts, I tell her from my nearby perch. And these moments, I whisper to her still quiet body, these moments spent in your presence make this moment pregnant with the mystery of life.

I am grateful.

A mama robin nests in the rafters above where I sit, reminding me once again that life is always full of mystery, magic and miracles.