Sustenance

As I write from this small corner of my room, I realize that my desk is an immovable object. Oh yes, there are other places, other corners, where I could connect all the wires and peripherals and still work, but not with such peace as I have with its current placement.

My desk sits beside a window, beside a sheltered corner of my house, a corner where my birdfeeders are positioned to be out of the wind, and close enough that should the glass suddenly dissolve, I could reach out and touch the birds, a could lay my along the sill and should I remain still enough, they would likely light upon me.

A few feet away stands a small but full and beautifully shaped tree, lush and leafy in summer, a froth of barren grey branches in the cold seasons. In all seasons, though, bird garnish this tree with presence. I have seven pair of cardinals at last check, a few of whom have earned their own special designations; one is a fiesty red bird who challenges every other bird, knocking others off the feeders in his gluttonous haste to be first and have it all. Summer brings hordes of sun-yellow finches and a frothy riot of chirping and fluttering at the thistle feeders.

Some mornings of late have been unnaturally quiet, and that alone aroused curiosity, until a friend and I -- upon leaving my house -- spotted a healthy female hawk stalking from a sheltered spot in the shrubs. later, she perched on the peak of my roof, a mere six feet from the feeders, awaited her version of a smorgasbord. I startled the hawk one morning when, as I rounded the corner seed in hand, she suddenly flew up, wings rustling and brushing my face. Close encounter of a wild kind.

In the summer months my bluebird house rests at full occupancy, and hummers flitter by my bright red sugar feeders. From September to June, suet feeders hold myriad temptations -- berry blend, peanuts, sunflower seed -- at other points around the house, all positioned to bring maximum birdsong to the world around me.

This obsession had been lurking within me all my life, but blossomed with my father's disability: confined to the home in winter, bird feeding became his pastime of choice, one nurtured by and shared with all of us. My time at the lake intensified my obsession with the addition of wild birds -- egrets, heron, eagles. I've since carried this obsession back to the city I live in now. It's so well known that my Christmas stocking this held my favorite licorice, and suet cakes.

It's a simple pleasure really; no heavy effort involved, just the daily monitoring of seed. Just breathe, watch, listen, smile, laugh...and the day eases by. In a time of manic communication and constant "tuning in," stopping to watch my birds, to let their song serenade me, becomes a peaceful decompression.

Photo by Brandi Rose LaPlante (granddaughter), who knows where the bird book is.