Robin Memories

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: It would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad. (C.S. Lewis)

I met this young robin four weeks ago early in the morning. It was not yet a strong, mature flyer, but it's egg days were behind it. Among many robin's egg facts, a few cling to me. Once this summer I glimpsed a mother robin hopping up on the edge of her nest to gently turn the eggs it held. This turning is essential to keep the eggs evenly warm and to prevent the developing babies from sticking to their shells. Egg tending requires more than just sitting. When the sitting is over, that same mother robin leaves space and time for the young one inside to peck its way out unaided. This hatching can take an entire day. Getting from one's hatching out to a position beyond the nest like the young robin I encountered has its many steps too. Recalling a young robin on the pavement, I envision that bird high against the sky now.

In the egg, C.S. Lewis saw a reflection of all of us, our ideas, dreams, plans, potential. It is easy to give up on a hope we have nurtured. Rarely does anything happen as quickly, smoothly, or easily as we would like. En route, we are tempted to remain safely in process forever, never having to test out if what we want or are working on can actually take flight. When I look up at the empty nest on the front of my house this fall and through the winter, I'm going to keep track of what it is I would like to unleash in my life and then be mindful of the many steps to be taken before the vulnerable moment when it comes to be or not. The nest is a humble nudge toward risk, growth, and perhaps even future flight.

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Wild Ginger Thriving

If you were reading my blog last summer, the plant pictured above may look familiar. It was featured in a June 2015 post called “Pilgrim Plant.” I had passed this wild ginger onto friends several years back when it was given to me while I was traveling. A summer ago, those same friends were moving from their home of thirty years and couldn't take any outside plants with them. I asked if it was okay before I dug the wild ginger up to take it to a shady spot in my front yard, the sort of space these plants prefer. In last year's photo, there were bits of soil on its leaves, indicative of a recent transplant.

Over the course of last summer, the traveling wild ginger didn't do well. It seemed like a transplant that wouldn't take. I gave up thoughts of watching it spread in coming seasons with its full groundcover. After a difficult winter for me when I wondered about the success of my transplant into the soil of this place three years ago, I was so pleased to see the wild ginger reappear hearty as ever. Both the ginger and I experienced uncertainty on our way to this new season of growth. A few posts back I wrote about the robin nesting on the bend of the drain pipe running down from the gutter on the front of my home. There beneath the nest full of hungry young robins, the wild ginger is quiet, green, and strong.

New soil is risky, whether that soil is beneath our feet or the soil of a new idea, relationship, job, or direction. There are no guarantees. We don't always make it. Those who accompany us, bearing witness to the challenge, in this case a wild ginger, are cherished indeed.

 

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