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How A Head Fake
Made the Earth Shake
In the Garden...
When we first moved into our house, I was easily
startled by the noises and creaks and moans and sighs a house can make,
when you are not yet formally introduced and barely speak each other’s
language. Sounds lost in translation. Oh, that’s the furnace kicking in.
Or Oh! the floorboards in the dining room settle in the night. Ah!
That’s the wind whipping through the flue in the fireplace.
Settling in.
Achieving new house equilibrium. Ahhh!
But this! This Bam Bam Bam Bam Bam coming out of
the laundry room. Over and over and over and over. What is this? A bird.
A little birdie. Flying into the window over and over and over.
Knocking him or herself silly. Conk on the head, fall to the ground.
Fluff off feathers and lift off. Bam. Bam. Bam. Over and over and over. I
couldn’t take it anymore so I went outside and it flew away. Five
minutes later, it started all over again. Unless I was willing to stand
sentinel for the rest of my days, I needed a new idea. So I looked it
up. On the Internet. I typed in...how to fool a birdie in the
garden...or something sort of kind of like that. And believe it or not, I
got a reply. A suggestion. Tape the picture of a cat in the window and
the birdie will never come back.
The sunlight on the window, at a certain time of
day, creates a mirror like effect and the little birdie sees itself and
just wants to play...with another little birdie that looks almost
identical to itself. A twin maybe? An alter ego? But in reality a fake
birdie.
So I didn’t need a real cat to scare it away. Just a
reasonable facsimile. I didn’t have a picture of a cat, but I found a
postcard with a cute little kitty on the front. I taped it to the window
so that it faced the outdoors. Moments later, the little birdie soared
into view, hovered near the face of the little kitty and fled up into
the birch tree nearby. From that moment on, no birdie concussions. But I
had this odd sensation, whenever I was in the yard, and saw my little
birdie friend, that I had been dishonest. Sneaky. There really was no
kitty. Not even a cat. Just me and a postcard. An imitation. A fake. A
fraud.
Garden Variety Wisdom
The wisdom of the garden is like everything else
here, it needs to be cultivated, tended, and attended. Mistakes are
made, but the hope is always that we will learn from them. But that
requires listening and listening well. And occasionally, a second chance
and perhaps a third, to get it right.
I was out shopping, and as per usual easily
distracted by anything and everything gardenereal...uh you
know...related to gardening...to the art of the garden...and I saw the
cutest painted metal birdie. I was in a funny mood, as normally I would
have walked on by, but it was a brightly painted, oddly shaped,
glittery, shimmery, a so-not-a-bird flashy show off with a banana yellow
beak and purple feathers, a bit of fun, a ha-ha little joke. I bought
it. I planted its metal feet in the rock garden near my metal table,
close to the hostas in the shade, and walked away. When I looked back
over my shoulder, I felt a twinge of conscience. The purple and yellow
glittery shimmery birdie looked out of place, uncomfortable, ill at
ease. So I walked back and tucked it in different spots, sat it in
different poses, in and out of the sun light. Then gave up. Or gave in. I
just thought...oh well, we’ll see. We’ll just see.
And so it began...
Day One:
A robin flew from branch to branch in a smooth ever
shrinking perimeter around the rock garden. It never landed, merely a
merry-go-round fly by.
Day Two:
Two robins flying from branch to grass. One
standing sentinel while the other inched across the grass closer and
closer to the edge of the rock garden. A shift of the wind, the stirring
of leaves, the startled robins flew off.
Day Three:
Two more robins on the branch and two in the grass.
Feeling safer in pairs and advancing closer to the rock garden, and
closer to the glittery birdie that never moved, never chirped , never
offered a song of encouragement. Playing hard to get, but within easy
reach.
Day Four:
Now all four robins are in the grass and prancing.
Dancing. I mean it. Dancing and running back and forth in front of the
rock-garden-rock-hard metal birdie. Dancing and bobbing and preening and
well, let’s face it. Flirting. Out right flirting. Male Chippendales.
Females from the Moulin Rouge. Fan dancers. High prancers. Then whoops.
Absentmindedly tripping each other up and scaring themselves into a
fleeing fit of feathers and down.
Day Five:
This is rapidly becoming an X-rated story. A little
bit kinky. For now, the robins are up in the branches and the bold
brushfire red cardinals and brash little woodpeckers are fist bumping
and blowing kisses and downright wooing and cooing their way across the
rocks closer and closer as the gasps and moans from the uppermost
branches of the birch tree sully the air to the exact moment there is
contact. Up close and personal contact. My real life feathered little
birdie friends are so taken in by the glitter and glam of the yellow
beaked phoney baloney avian avatar that they lean in for a kiss. A peck.
A swoon.
Bam. The metal birdie pitches over on the rocks.
Flat on its painted face. The jig, as they say, is up...or
rather...down. And I believe, that if birdies could blush in real life,
they would have. In shame. In embarrassment. For being caught up in the
dance. For falling for the con. Stung. Cheated. Humiliated. Defeated.
They slump off across the rocks and puff up their chests as if to
say...I knew it all along. The giggles from up high in the branches, the
robins are giggling until I fix them with a stare. They know I know.
They know I know and we should all be ashamed. But it is I, who owns the
shame, for I was the one who started it all by thinking that everyone
can spot a fake. Will not be lured in. Cannot be harmed nor hurt.
You know, you folks all know, how you feel about those sad sad folks who plant fake
flowers in their flower boxes? Makes me sad. Makes me want to stop by,
tap lightly on their door and hand them some seedlings fresh from the
garden. The start of something unique. Uniquely theirs. To cultivate, to tend to, to grow.
The garden is like a lending library. There is
always room to share, a space and a place to grow. And no need, no need
at all to copy, to Xerox, to try to be someone that you are not.
Day Six:
I took a stroll out to the rock garden and to my
surprise, the pretty painted birdie was gone. Vanished. Stolen. At first
flush, I felt angry. On second thought, as in a second chance, I
smiled. For all was as it should be once again in the garden, simple and
honest and true.
So I turned to walk back to my house, and as I
passed the birch tree, a woodpecker and a red cardinal lit upon the
branches. They looked at me, each in their uniquely regal regalia of
feathers and feet, and waited patiently for their due. I nodded and
waved, then whispered, “I’m sorry.”
For here in the garden, there is a sign that reads...
“The most difficult person to be honest with is yourself.”
In the meanwhile, take good care, be kind to birdies, and be true.
Truly truly you.
Original.
One of a kind.
Unique.
Exactly what a much wiser birdie told me.
Chapter 25...The Yard Yetis A Gardeners Tale...
Camp No-See-Um
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Shining
Light
Into
the Darkness...
An Over the Hill motto crocheted on a sampler pillow reads...
Use It Or Lose It
I find it offensive that this line is said with a
smirk and aimed at the elderly, the Over the Hill gang. I know a few
younger folks who don’t USE IT and act as though they have already LOST
IT...and I would humbly suggest an amendment to everyone’s personal
constitutional...to exercise...their brains, their creativity, their
imaginations, their innate skills to learn a new trade, to polish up an
old one, to invent a way to set this wobbly world right.. right back on
its axis before we all fall off in a stupor and a shout of surprise.
Dementia, demented behavior is possible at any
age. Cemented regimented rote unquestioning uncurious uninterested
listless survival at the end of a leash being pulled by another is a
sure fire way to end up in need of a rescue.
At the bottom of a hole yodeling a simpering howl...how did I get here? Help me! I have fallen and cannot get up.
Oh yes you can.
Not only can you do it, but you might invent say,
the portable escalator, or hologram elevator, or collapsible Ron
Popeil-like pocket rope ladder. Maybe dust off your design pencil and
sketch out a new excavating technique for underground trains.
Perhaps even sit down on the ground at the bottom
of the hole long enough to look around and Voila! discover a never
before discovered type of flora or fauna, a creepy crawly bug that will
lead to research and a breakthrough to end the ravaging rage of a
debilitating disease.
The point is to get your hands dirty. To tamp down
the sound of your own wailing voice long enough to ask not...how did I
get here?...but how will I get myself out? A helping hand is lovely, but
when the hand is your own, slapping your forehead as a light bulb
flashes overhead and an idea takes shape…
Now that is the best answer to every question.
How can I help myself?... always leads to... How can I help others?
So...what to do...what to do...
Put down the GPS.
Do you know that police report a large majority of
distress requests on their scanners is from people who are lost. And the
high end of that demographic? Young people who have grown up on GPS and
cell phones and are so busy looking down that they miss landmarks, road
signs, their directional bearings, relying on technology rather than
their own perspective, their own eyes and ears to travel from here to there.
Cannot locate the nearest Starbucks, let alone name
the cities 100 miles in any direction, the names of countries within
their own hemisphere or beyond their borders and across the seas.
Again. Put down the GPS. Make an old fashioned road
map. Start with an X marks the spot HERE. Your heart will tell you
where to put the THERE. Then lean back and close your eyes.
Imagine It.
The road trip. The walking path through the jungle
or the zip line through the rain forest. Assess the terrain. Prepare
yourself for the journey. Be sure your body is well nourished and your
canteen is full to the brim. Don your comfortable hiking shoes and shed
the accessories. And whatever you do, pack a flashlight and extra
batteries to help with your night vision and to scare away the scaries
that lurk in the shadows.
A word of caution.
Do not think of your travels as moving from Point A to Point B. That is not
a life changing move, that is simply changing the channel on the
remote. You have relied on your upper digits too long to acquire
information. What you seek is not on your phone or on the Internet or
your IPad. Besides, at the bottom of this hole, this very hole you are
in, the WiFi connection is lousy and even if you stand on top of your
devices, your elevation and elation will only improve a few inches or
millimeters.
There is an “I” device involved, to be sure, but that I is the I in You.
I is for Instinct.
You have it. Trust it. That is what instincts are
for, they keep us safe, keep us focused on what is good for us and away
from what is not.
Oh and tunes. Learn how to hum loudly, so that if
you think you need roadside assistance, you can differentiate the good
samaritans from those who seek to trip you up or suggest a dead end
detour.
As you set out, think of HERE as Number One and
THERE as Number TWO. Because any mathematician will tell you that there
is an infinite number of infinitesimally small steps in between.
The hardest step is the first. Scratching the
surface. Securing a toehold. Reaching up, looking up, eyeballing the
next move. Take it. Move. Move. Move. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
But for heaven’s sake, do not expect a ginormous
marathon cheering crowd along your path, as those who think they know
you well, will be surprised to see you go. They may not like it terribly
much. For, you see, they liked you for the way you WERE and they cannot
see the pinnacle of the climb, as you do. That’s okay. You don’t have
to convince THEM of the seriousness of your journey. You only have to
convince YOU.
I promise. I truly do, that as you move onward and
upward, side to side, over across down and through, you will bump into
fellow travelers. They may walk alongside you, or wave as they pass
headed off in a different direction.
I am not being flippant.
Not trying to preach.
I am asking you to be serious.
To take your life seriously.
To grab it with both hands and dig down for the unlimited potential that resides in you.
Regardless of your age, your ethnicity, your country of origin, or your ability to read a map. Or not.
Creativity of the mind is a gift, of which we are all blessed.
Curiosity is a gift, as well.
The best and brightest, the most prolific of
inventors, designers, innovators, and creators, fall and fail. They
expect it. They embrace it. It is merely a checkmark on their long list
of endless possibilities.
But for each, the end result, the goal is to be better.
To shed light.
To do good work.
We need each other.
I need you.
Reach up.
Pull the cord.
Shine.
Bon Voyage Mon Ami.
Adios Amiga Mia.
Bien Venu.
Hasta La Vista.
Sayonara.
Arrivederci.
Auf Wiedershen.
Tot ziens.
Au Revior.
Ciao.
Vi ses.
Farvel.
Ha det bra.
Do zobaczenia.
Sbohem.
Subha yatra.
Paalam na.
Hwyl fawr.
Aloha...which means hello and good bye all at the same time.
I’ll miss you because I am the one watching you
leave, but I am also one of your biggest fans, and I would love a
postcard from your journeys...if you have the time…
And if you need a night light,
cut out this little light bulb, and pin it to your lapel.
Signal fellow travelers that YOU are part of...
...the Light Bulb Project...
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