Just imagining it, I can feel the tension leave my shoulders. My breathing slows. To lie in the folds of my grandma’s apron was as near as I came to where all hopes nested.
She possessed the most remarkable ability, to fall asleep at any given moment. Not narcolepsy. It was as if she stored the sleep beside the Kleenex up her sleeve, and when she needed five minutes, or twenty, she could pull it out and take the needed rest. And I truly mean it could be any time. During a telephone call. A commercial break during Days of Our Lives. Or as you struggled through your turn in a card game of which she neglected to explain to you the rules.
During one such game, I watched her apron fall and rise. I couldn’t take it anymore. I laid down my cards and gently folded myself silently from my chair. I wormed my way back up into her lap, and rode love’s ebb and flow. When I think of it now, I was not all that graceful. Surely my climbing must have awakened her. I looked up to see if an eye opened. I think I saw just the curve of her lip. I rested comfortably in the knowledge that it was still my turn.
Before I knew how to spell either, the word nest was synonymous with the word comfort. I built one for my baby dolls and stuffed animals right beside my twin bed —sheeted with Raggedy Ann and Andy, topped with Big Susie, the largest of my stuffed dolls, who watched over them all when I went to Kindergarten at Washington Elementary. And when I needed a nest of my own, when spelling, or sharing, or the afternoon milk break became too much to handle, I would borrow the blankets (with their permission of course) and build a nest beside my mother’s bed, and she would Big Susie me through the night, and I was saved.
It’s no secret that I love to paint birds. This year, for the first time, I started giving them nests. So perhaps it’s no surprise that this is when it appeared, the giant nest at the edge of the forest. I’ve already built one panel with the wood, and it continues to support me daily. Between step and worry, it always makes me smile as I pass. This could out-Susie any problem that I had. And so I leave it at the nest.
And isn’t that what we all have to do in order to fly? I empty my cares, and walk a little lighter. This may be the day, this could be the day, the day that I fly!
We will never meet the owners of the VRBO we are staying at, but I think I like them, because of the birds. They are throughout the apartment. On plants. On the walls. A feather above the nightstand. Even a book beside, “Better living through birding.” Maybe it’s because I, too, love birds. To hear them sing on my walks. To paint them. Again and again to be feathered with a stroke of a brush. To give them a bit of my own song, my own words, knowing that no one can share it with a more widespread and gentle touch as they do.
Perhaps it’s even, “whatever you did for one of the least of these….”
I am at fault as anyone. As guilty as anyone. I can lose my patience. Become ungentle. And I don’t like it. So I paint them birds to tell you that I know better. That I can do better. And if you can see the love in that, in all those flutters, then, then I think, as I pull my shy and daring head from beneath my wing, I think we will soar.
I open the book beside me. There is a quote on the first page, and reading it, I know that I, we, were meant to be here. It reads — “I believe the best way to begin reconnecting humanity’s heart, mind, and soul to nature is for us to share our individual stories” — J. Drew Lanham, from The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature.
I sit at the kitchen table of these birding people. I do like them. I, we, are nesting.
I can’t unseen it now, how she became the nest from which I flew.
I have slept in them. Written about them. Longed for them. Been coddled in them. But this was the first year that I painted a nest. And it’s not lost on me that it was only after I painted my Grandma Elsie. And it wasn’t planned — who can plan magic? — and it wasn’t contrived, they both came at exactly the right time.
I suppose with all good nests, it takes a lot of gathering. Story by story, twig by twig, but I see it now, what (who) gave me the security to fly. I hadn’t noticed the palette similarity until I placed the bird beside her. It is undeniable. Not everyone can teach you how to fly. Maybe my mother did that. Some have the specific role of building the nest. And without it, nothing else is really possible. No daring, without a safe place to land. No risk, without the blending of the heart’s colors.
I can say my “thank yous” daily, and I do, but I imagine the only true way to show my gratitude to this wide eyed giver of the nest, is simply to fly.
After five years of restoration, the Notre Dame cathedral reopened in Paris! I don’t know that one exclamation point can signify the extraordinary feat. While most agreed that five years would be nearly impossible, the greater consensus was — “not on my watch…” It wasn’t whether it could be done, but that it had to be done. And it wasn’t just Catholics, or Parisians, the world seemed to be invested. For it isn’t just architecture, it is a story of our humanity. Some will call that faith. Fortitude. Survival. Pride. Celebration. Maybe it’s all of those things. But this building, this evidence of our living, this story that has stood for nearly a thousand years, all agreed that it couldn’t be lost to something so banal as a dropped cigarette or a loose wire. Not a war, not a natural disaster, nothing in all this time had taken it down. No one wanted to be the ones that let it go.
Every detail was replicated. Details that most will never see, but all will feel. The voice of Notre Dame has been restored. Each rafter is aligned to the note. There is a sound that exits because of the building. It rings again. Still.
In my most humble of ways, I work each day on keeping my own “Notre Dame” alive. There is a voice to my Hvezdas. My Alexandria. My Van Dyke Road. My friends. My new French family. My Provence. My Paris. All rafters in the voice that is mine. Is ours. And I will do everything to keep that alive. It is my watch. It is my responsibility.
And don’t we all have that? Aren’t we all keepers of the story? Isn’t it our joyful duty to do the work? To pass on the love? To keep it alive? To be the exclamation point of this time? This place? “Yes! Yes!!!” I shout, we shout, over the sound of ringing bells.
I’d like to think I was aware of each twig. Each stick. The constant effort it must have taken, with damaged, sometimes even broken wings. Just to build something that I would be certain to leave. But I’m not sure that I saw it. Does anyone see it while nestled? Mostly, I suppose, I just took comfort.
Seeing it now, for the gift that it was, continues to be, I can only wonder, am I singing enough? I sing. I know this. But is it worthy? Is it heard above all the noise? Sometimes I hear the humming along, and I think, I can feel it, the gathering of new sticks. The building of new nests. And I think we can build something. Build it together. Joyfully. We who have been given all the tools, all the luxury and comfort, all the support of those who came before us, we have to sing. Sing and gather, and risk each thorn, because the world is listening. Watching. So in need of a nest, an impermanent nestle that holds us, lifts us, and sets us free.
We must be the gatherers. The inconspicuous gatherers, preparing the nest. Allowing all the comforts unaware, tucked within the improbable verse, the impossible song. It’s all we’ve been given, it’s all we need to hear.
There was a gate to Kinkead Cemetery, but it was never locked. It was about a mile from my house, a mile of gravel. I liked to ride in the cemetery because the paths were all paved. After all, riding a bicycle was not about getting anywhere, but about going fast. Once I got off the gravel and made it past the first iron fence, which held the Kinkead name, I could really pick up speed. No more rocks and holes to slow me down or wipe me out. Nothing to stand in the way of tire whizzin’, hair blowin’, teeth clenchin’ speed….nothing, except Mr. Whitman. He lived in the white house just outside the iron fence. He took care of the cemetery. He was old for his age, so my mother said. In my head, old was just old. He had gray stubbled hair on the sides of his cheeks, more than on the top of his head. He was missing two front teeth, one on the top and one on the bottom, which I discovered the first time he growled at me. In one hand he always carried a shovel or a rake, which shook as fast as my knees when he raised it in the air along with his upper lip. But we lived on a gravel road, and the cemetary was the only tarred, smooth ride, within my bike riding distance. A beautiful, fast and smooth ride that lured me daily. Mr. Whitman took lunch from 11:30 to 12:30 every day. By 11:32, he leaned his rake against the fence, 11:33 out the gate and 11:35, the screen door of his house was slamming behind him. 11:36 was my beginning. I had my course all mapped out…from the gate to the flat markers, and then past the large upright ones, down the middle of the cemetery… up a slight incline by the brick shed and then down a big curve, that’s where I’d really pick up speed. I needed to. The next corner was Baby Land. It was spelled out in flowers, pink, blue, yellow and white – the same col- ors of the flowers on my banana seat. Even though it was the saddest part of the cemetery, it was the prettiest. The flowers were beautiful. Once past the corner of Baby Land it was a straight shot back to the gate. I didn’t have a watch, so he caught me mid-lap several times. But once I figured out that sixteen was the magic number, I was never caught again…until that one day. Now, I won’t say that I wasn’t easily distracted…say, by the song playing in my head, or the turtle on the path, but I was pretty good with my lap times. I knew how many pumps it was from marker to marker, corner to corner. It was a game, a game I had won for two weeks straight. Then, on the fifteenth day, the eleventh lap, the corner right before Baby Land, I hit a rock, flew off the path and landed in a dark, deep hole. My bike abandoned me. I was alone in this…this empty, dirty hole, this… this terrible, this, oh….I was in someone’s grave. “Maaaaaahhhhhhhhmmmm,” I hollered out of reflex. She was miles away at work, but again I hollered. “Maaaahhhmmm!” I flopped down on the seat of my cut-offs. “How did I always…?” I slapped the dirt in disgust. The grave was new, but the situation…not all that unfamiliar. I had to think of a plan. There had to be a way out. I didn’t have much time. I was on my eleventh lap…and as near as I could fig- ure, a half a lap’s worth in the fall, another half sitting in disbelief..that left me with just a few laps’ time before Mr. Whitman came back from lunch. I jumped up. I jumped again and again…and again…each time a little less near the top. There was nothing to hang on to. The dirt was still loose. No way out. I jumped and grabbed. I could just reach the top, but it didn’t matter, I always came down. I could see the back tire of my bike waiting just outside the hole as if to say, “Hey, if you don’t get out soon, we’re both going to be in big trouble.” My bicycle had always been there for me…saved me from barking dogs, neighborhood bullies and the fear of standing still. He would be coming soon. I jumped. “If I could just…” I jumped again, this time touching the wheel. “He can’t catch me here. He’ll kill…” I jumped again, this time moving it slightly. I heard the iron gate close. I jumped again and again. I heard a tapping. It was getting closer. Now louder. It was something hitting the ground. “Was it steps?” I jumped again. He had picked up his hoe and hit it against the pavement with each step. It was getting louder. I had to get out. I jumped again. And this time I did it. Boy did I do it. I grabbed the wheel…and the bike came in after me. There I was, buried with my bicycle. The tapping stopped. He must have gone onto the grass. “Yes!” Victory was mine, for that instant. He had passed me by on his way to Baby Land. Although sweet, the victory was short. I had remained unnoticed, but I was still stuck with my bicycle in that stupid hole. Now, even if I thought of a way out, I’d have to wait for Mr. Whitman to leave. That could be hours. I sat down in disgust and threw a clump of dirt at my seemingly useless two-wheeler. “Dirt, dirt, dirt. D – I – R – T. Dirt, dirt bo-birt, banana fana fo firt…” It was going to be a long wait for freedom. I needed a friend. Cathy Norton was the closest. I taught her how to play the “Best – Worst” game. You know the one, you have to claim your best day and your worst day…best gum, worst gum…best teacher, worst teacher. Nobody ever won or lost, so it wasn’t really a game, but a way to waste time. And speaking of which…at that moment, I had a lot of it. I decided to play both of our roles. “Best Candy?” She’d have said Tangy Taffy. Me? I always went for Pop Rocks. It wasn’t that they tasted so good, just so fun to eat. “Worst?” For me it was Charleston Chews. For her, Wacky Wafers.
“Best Gum?” We were always in agreement on this one. “Bubs Daddy – Red Hot.” “Worst Gum?” In tandem, “Anything in a green wrapper that made your breath fresh.” We had worked hard on that answer. “Best Singer?” Cathy always switched off between Michael Jackson and Andy Gibb, depend- ing on which song she had heard last on the radio. Mine was always the same. She thought I was crazy. “Frank Sinatra. That’s right, ‘Ol Blue Eyes, The Chairman of the Board.” My mother taught me the all the words to “Mac the Knife” when I was five. How could there be another? “Hey that shark has…pretty teeth, dear…And he shows ’em pearly white. Just a jack knife..” My rendition wasted another five minutes. “Best Day?” I wasn’t really in the mood. Now worst day, that seemed to come right to mind, as I clenched a handful of dirt. “How long have I been in here? Doesn’t this man believe in coffee breaks?” I could hear his hoe, or his shovel or something hit a rock or tombstone every once in a while. He was still around. “Ok…focus now. Back to the game. Worst day?” Worst day. That was easy. It had started the night before. My mother and I had our own routines before bedtime. I’d wet my toothbrush, dampen a wash- cloth, flush the toilet and then let her have the bathroom. While she flossed her teeth, I’d count the number of sleeping pills in the bottle on her nightstand and hope for a similar count in the morning. Luckily, she was so rigorous with her routine, she never noticed mine. Our routines changed that night with our good-night hug. Oh, we always hugged, but this time, instead of giving me a hug, she seemed to be taking mine. She held me so hard, I thought she would squeeze the life right out of me. She let go so slowly, I could almost feel her sadness. I laid in my bed very still. I was confused and a little bit scared. It was one of those nights when I didn’t feel too old for my Raggedy Ann pillow case and sheet. I’m not sure if I had been sleeping yet when she came back in. She stood over me in the darkness. “Are you sleeping?” I wiped my eyes and shook my head no. “Why not? Are you scared?” she asked. “No.” I lied. Of course I was afraid, but not of what she thought. I was afraid of what was hap-
pening with her…afraid of the fear that she seemed to be feeling. “It’s ok if you are. You can come and sleep in my room. I’ll make you a little nest.” We had always called it a nest – a few blankets on the floor beside her bed. Whenever I was scared…of the dark, the thoughts in my head, the new place we were living in…she’d make a nest for me…and then I was saved. But what scared me tonight was the realization that this time, and maybe some of the others too, she was the one that was scared…of the dark, the thoughts in her head, …and the only way she could save herself was to believe she was saving me. I felt so responsible. How could I save her? I had to, but how could I? What did I know? I knew about bicycles and candy. Bubble gum and Band-Aids. I couldn’t save her. The world was so big. I was only allowed to ride my bike one mile away. Without the light, I could barely see the outline of her face…but her eyes looked harder at me than they ever had before. I had seen that look. It was the same look a mother gave the flowers in Baby Land. She looked to them to give back a beauty that had been taken away. “How could they do that?” I wondered. I always thought the flowers had too much responsibility. And now I felt that look on my face. I couldn’t change things. I couldn’t make her world pain free…bring my father back, make the town more forgiving…I just couldn’t. But she continued to look at me and I knew I had to try. The only thing I could do, for that night, for that moment of darkness, was to let her save me. For the first time, in a nest that she had made, I stayed awake. I counted the pills when the sun finally came up. She went to work and then I went to sleep. I set the alarm for 11:15. Not long after, I found myself in a hole, in Kinkead Cemetery. Not a good 24 hour period. Definitely, worst day material. I continued to let handfuls of dirt slide between my fingers like sand in an hourglass. Mr. Whit- man continued to work not far away. Could he still be in Baby Land? How long was he going to spend there? Wasn’t he needed anywhere else? There I sat, in my open grave. It was no nest. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair at all. Cathy Norton was probably riding on her motorized three wheeler right now…not having to worry about anything. She had four sisters, a mother and a father. They had lived in the same house forever at the north end of VanDyke road. Her mother didn’t have to work. Her father came home every day at 5:30. And she never, never ever counted sleeping pills. That’s why I ended up in this stupid place. I was tired. It was just too much. I couldn’t have someone’s happiness as my responsibility. I couldn’t do it alone. I couldn’t. Who would take care of me? I didn’t want to be looked to. Who would…?
My thoughts were interrupted by a whistling Mr. Whitman. I didn’t know he whistled. Was he ever going to leave Baby Land? He spent more time on those stupid flowers than… And then it hit me. He did spend more time on those flowers than anything else. He weeded and hoed, shoveled and watered, picked and caressed, watered and whistled too. Yes, those flow- ers had a big responsibility, maybe bigger than the rest, but they weren’t alone…a gardener was looking after them, harder and longer than any other flowers in the cemetery. Mr. Whitman finally went for his coffee break. It was my big chance. “What did I have? What were my tools, my options? Ok, the bike’s useless…but I must have something…a stick…a rock? No, there was nothing…nothing but that stupid, flowered, banana-seat bike. Banana Fanna fo fanna, a mee-a, mia, mo… Wait a minute..that’s it. My stupid bicycle. Ok, not stupid…my fabu- lous bicycle. It was my escape. It had been there the whole time. It was so simple. Why hadn’t I seen it?” I braced my bike the short way. The wheels dug into the sides, steady as a staircase. I climbed onto the seat, reached my hands to solid ground and climbed out. Just as I was about to raise my hands in victory, I looked down and realized my bike was irretrievable. “Now what?” I decided I would just have to leave it…come back for it when Mr. Whitman’s day was over. “But then what?” Well, I didn’t have time to think of that now. I had to get out. I had no idea what time it was and I wanted to beat my mother home from work. I ran the mile home. I grabbed my knees to catch my breath in the kitchen. The clock on the wall said three. I had made it. Plenty to spare. I had made it – made it through the night, the fall, the grave…and I knew I could survive anything. My clothes were filthy. I washed them in the sink with shampoo and dried them with my blow- dryer. I waited on the front step. She drove up, just a few minutes after Mr. Norton drove by. She got out of the car. “Did you have a good day?” I asked. “Yes,” she answered with a smile, grabbed my hand and I believed her. “You?” she asked. “The best.” And I believed myself. After dinner I recruited Cathy to walk back to the cemetery to try and retrieve my bicycle. We had all the necessary tools – rope, a hammer and three packages of Bubs Daddy bubble gum. I don’t know what the plan was actually, but we had all the confidence that age had not yet dimin- ished.
When we got to the gate we saw the most amazing thing. My bike was resting against the iron bars. And it wasn’t even dirty. Someone had rescued it. “I thought you said your bike was…” Cathy started. “It was. It really was buried.” “Well it’s not now. Let’s go. Brady Bunch will be on soon.” It’s funny how easily we both accepted the tiny miracle that rested against the Kinkead fence. “It’s probably just a repeat,” I said as I straddled my bike. I gripped the handle bars. Hold everything dear. “I don’t care. I still want to see it.” Cathy hopped on the back of my seat. We started the ride back. “Best Brady Bunch?” she asked. “The one where Jan drops her bracelet out the window and Alice buys her a new one.” “Yeah, that one was good. Worst?” “The trip to the Grand Canyon. It was so beat.” “Best Brady Boy?” she continued. “Definitely Peter.” “Yeah, he’s the cutest.” She held on to my waist as I pedaled. “Best bike ride?” she asked as we neared her driveway. “This one,” I said, “Definitely, this one.” That night my mother tucked me in and went to her bed. A few minutes later I got up and went into her room. “What’s the matter? Are you afraid?” “No,” I answered. And this time I meant it.
“Then, what?” “I heard Mr. Whitman whistle today,” I said. “I just thought you should know.” She smiled. I returned to my bed and we both slept through the night.
