 |
Synchronicity has always been one of my favorite words. I like the way it rolls off the tongue, but I also love the meaning it gives to my life: a symbolic coincidence (if you believe in coincidences) in time of two or more similar events that are causally unrelated, something that happens at the same time, usually making that something amazing and unprecedented. The story below is a synchronous event in my life, recorded in my journal, that has become a treasured memory.
I felt the familiar arms around my waist as Patrick moved silently behind me, two pairs of eyes now watching the ritual unfolding on the patio table. A male cardinal tore juicy strips from a grape and delivered them to the open beak of his fledgling. His mate did the same for a second offspring, wings fluttering, vibrating in the manner of a young bird waiting to be fed. The drama repeated itself. It was the kind of scene both of us devoured with pleasure, nourishing an archetypal need for paradise. It brought me back to a much earlier time, and although I had moved on with my life, I allowed myself to drift back twenty-five years.
A sudden thud against the back glass door of the townhome drew me from the kitchen to the patio. My two children, ages one and three and a half, were asleep and I was alone. Curiosity more than fear engulfed me, for I was young and brave and believed no harm could come to me. No man in the house was there to check out the noise and reassure, leaving only the three of us to fend for ourselves. I moved to the door fearlessly. A goldfinch had flown into the large sliding glass door and was out cold. I'd read about the danger of birds doing that, and I had even once revived a robin that had flown into a store window a number of years earlier. The scene did not fill me with anxiety or dread, rather a feeling of duty, perhaps a duty inadvertently instilled in me by a gentle mother who tended every sick and wounded bird that arrived on our doorsteps throughout my childhood. Without much thought I reached down to scoop him up, the plan being to warm him into consciousness in my hands. He was light and still warm. I'd never seen or held a yellow bird before. When I stood up, I saw that the entire chinaberry tree enclosed within the patio walls was covered with goldfinches. There must have been a hundred, maybe more. The sight of so much yellow produced the physical sensation that accompanies unexpected delight. Even though I had opened the grating, squeaking door and stepped outside, the birds remained in the tree, like a gift, a surprise package delivered to my door by some universal post.
It didn't take long for the goldfinch to move again, eyes first, then wings, then feet. He grabbed hold of my finger to steady himself and prepared for take off. I moved toward the door, cupping my right hand over his body to prevent him from flying into the glass door again or fluttering around the room in confused panic. I opened the door, lifted my hand with its feather-light, and watched as he rejoined his mates. It was a joy I had done nothing in particular to earn. It was a "tree with the lights in it" moment that Annie Dillard so aptly described, a kind of brief encounter that signals every cell in your body of its extraordinary magnificence, the full significance of which escapes you until one day, years later, it hits you hard.
The next time I looked at the tree the birds were gone. I don't remember now what more important task kept me from standing at the door and staring out at the tree--the children, a phone call, the kettle whistling for a cup of tea? But they were gone, and I never saw them again. In fact, I never saw another goldfinch. Ever. I figured their presence that afternoon was some kind of synchronous mystery in which the universe had conspired to ease the pain and uncertainty of raising babies alone, a cosmic prediction that I would indeed make it through another day, week, year, eternity. Perhaps I had really always known that such beauty would be the grace to heal and strengthen and keep me buoyed up and floating as I learned to rescue myself.
My daughters are grown now--a doctor and a teacher, both determined to save a world where people need rescuing, not birds. I remarried after twenty years--to a man who loved birds, an English gardener. That same cosmic post rapped at my door again, and Patrick stepped into my life and created a sanctuary for song birds, crows and grackles, and often water fowl. Six bird feeders emerged from among the altheas, wisteria, bougainvillea, honeysuckle, and roses, and hundreds of birds visited them each day. Countless pounds of birdseed provided daily sustenance for birds, squirrels, voles, and opossums. Blackbellied whistling ducks came in twos and fours, sat on the utility line above the back garden "like patience on a monument," and finally began their slow wide descent to the piles of seed below.
I saw the movie Field of Dreams years ago and have since repeated many times the iconic line, "If you build it, they will come." Incredibly still, this line applies to most of my life, and certainly at least to the seed trays in our garden. With every act of caring, consciously or unconsciously, I thank the universe for a tree long ago full of goldfinches and the enormous mystery of it that stirred in me a belief in hope and goodness and the joyous appreciation of each day. At the end of this cycle, as always is
rebirth, a new beginning. Out of darkness, light.
Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.
Emerson wrote, "We live symbolic lives," and I know exactly what he meant.
