Rebellious or Ready
On baby robins
Most mornings, I open our thick sliding glass door so that the dogs and I can hear the birds more clearly.
Tula watches vigilantly as squirrels approach the bird feeder, and then busts out to bark them away. I’m unsure whether she knows she’s in service of the birds.
On Thursday morning as I washed my hands in the kitchen sink, I saw a little ball of feathers perched on the Russian olive tree on the eastern side of our house. A new baby robin. Old enough to not look wet anymore, but young enough to be plump, helpless, and shaggy-feathered. The mother robin flitted by every little while with her offering to her baby. And that little baby waited, and received, and pooped on my patio several times.
I wondered if that mother robin had to say “stay here, don’t move, I’m going to get you some breakfast.” But that baby did move.
Not far, at first, and both that baby and I seemed nervous about the launch. As I watched her precariously hop back and forth on that one branch where she had stayed so still, I could feel that she was about to move.
She didn’t tell me she was about to move, but she didn’t have to either. I could feel the energy that something was about to give way.
As she finally stepped off, wings flapping haphazardly, I held my breath. She wobbled through the air the six-foot distance to the pine tree. “You made it!” I thought.
I noticed then that the little bird had moved to join her sibling, who had already been in the pine, and had already pooped multiple poops onto my patio.
I haven’t seen the robins since. And I’ve hosed off all the poop. Cleaning the canvas for the next avian artists.
But since then, I have asked myself several times if that mother robin knew that her children would not heed her warning. If maybe that was part of the whole thing.
“Don’t move!” she said, but then left long enough to ensure that baby bird would find herself bored enough, urged enough, compelled enough to move.
No longer able to fight her impulse, she had to try. She had to trust that her wings would do what they were meant to do.
And I wonder whether that baby robin was rebellious or simply ready.
And whether there is ever a difference between the two.
The Delighting Mini Retreat on Sunday was such a, well, a delight. If you missed it but know that a monthly reset like this would do you some good, consider joining us in July and August.
And stay tuned here, I’v got something really special coming for the tender hearts an highly sensitive souls that I’ll be sharing more about in the coming weeks.
“Rebellious or ready… is there a difference?”
I love that concept!
"Rebellious or ready..." That made me think about the difference between falling and jumping...they are so different, I think rebellious and ready are too maybe...
But.
As I read this my mind took it in a bit of a different direction. What you wrote made me think about you and I and our journey through therapy and healing.
How you described the baby bird felt like a description of me when I first came to you. I was no longer "wet" with grief, but was "shaggy-feathered" and unsteady for sure.
Starting my process with you was maybe like the little baby Robin venturing from the nest to the tree branch. As we worked together, 90 minute sessions every week for a long time, it was like you were whispering to me "you're safe, we will do this together, I've got you." Like maybe the mama Robin whispered to her baby, "you're ok, I'll be right back..."
Each week when I would leave a session, even the hardest of the hard sessions, I knew you would be there next week and that I had what I needed to get from here to there. You would bring the sustenance for that week, that was just what I needed to grow strong enough to use my wings, just a little at first, then to really fly.
You were the mama Robin, the mama bear, the loving protective presence I needed to heal. You so carefully held a compress on the hemorrhaging wounds that needed to hemorrhage in order to heal. Those wounds are, for the most part, healed scars now.
I was able to go to every other week sessions, then once a month. Then, because of the healing that had taken place, I was able to use my wings to fly to another state and a new life. That would not have happened without you. It simply would not have.
You and I together "hosed off all the poop, cleaning the canvas" for the next chapter of my art. I will be eternally grateful for you, your expertise, your encouragement, your love and your ability to hold space for me and my very, very broken heart. Truly. You gently brought me back to life and fed me little by little, like the mama Robin, until I was able to strongly fly on my own.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Jesie.
I love you so much.