A pair of mourning doves migrate each spring to our small house overlooking a lush treeline for as long as I have cared to notice. The monogamous birds join for life and spread their wings a little after the children leave. We could not be more similar. The average lifespan of a mourning dove is about two years, so it must be their children and children’s children who return. I’m glad they feel safe with us. They favor us with continuity, which is no small thing these days.
Throughout the summer, the bird couple lingers daily on our deck rail or roofline, murmuring softly, preening one another or dancing about, and sometimes trick us at night mimicking owls with their serenade at dusk. The morning dove song becomes familiar and is so rhythmic, that sometimes I catch myself matching their cadence with my breath in a sort of unrehearsed meditation.
Coo, coo-coo.
Breathe in.
Coo, coo-coo.
Breathe out.
The doves re-nest each year in the blue spruce on the berm a safe distance from our human homes. They birth, then launch the hatchlings, reminding me it’s possible to adore my own children from a distance. When fall arrives they sing in one continuous lamentation, announcing their departure with a series of low and constant cooing, growing louder as they prepare to leave, not unlike a self-absorbed and anxious high school senior fraught with worry about the future, gifting their parents new reasons to be a little less sad about their upcoming relocation. But we understand. Change is hard.
There are other birds as well, a whole community. Barn swallows stop by in the evening to perch on the gutter at the edge of the roofline, skittish and gone in an instant when they see me. Next to the chatty doves who prefer to perch on the aluminum deck rail is a small nest tucked deep within the giant lilac bush, a kind of glorious bush turned tree that has been rooted at the base of the deck stairway for nearly a quarter century. The fifteen-foot lilac has long since bloomed now and sways in the fall winds as sunlight bounces off its emerald leaves, revealing a bowl of twigs carefully wound together at the joint of a limb. I think this nest belongs to the chick-a dees summering under the shade of the deck. Their bird children have also left.
Animal homes teach us so much about the benefits of simplicity. All we really need are beating hearts huddled together in a shared space, enough to eat, and protection from the elements. Nature offers clarity about what is essential and there is much we could really push aside. We humans really know how to complicate things.
Young children help us notice the best things. Recently, I was walking with my three-year-old granddaughter along the road by our home and we stopped to look in the tall grasses by a neighbor’s mailbox. To our delight, we found a dragonfly hovering within the long, speckled prairie grass.
“Look, Sophie! A dragonfly, see its beautiful wings?” I pointed.
“They has a red body. I love him!” Sophie gasped.
I believe she does love him, Sophie loves openly and inclusively. We stood together for a few minutes watching the speed of the dragonfly’s wings before it dashed off to another neighbor’s yard. This is something I would’ve missed had I not been looking closely at the natural world with a small person. Why is it that most of us wait to wonder until we are with young children? It’s as though we left that part of us behind. Children help us remember.
Time is fleeting and small children grow up, then go out in search of places they can be themselves and make an impact. This is both their right and responsibility. We give them a good start and that is enough. And if we are very fortunate, they return to the nest, a place they know to be safe, even if just for a long weekend, perhaps use up all the hot water and maybe bring along a few additional people to love, which is always my favorite thing.
Copyright (2022) Suzanne Bayer. All Rights Reserved