Changes

I think perhaps there is a parallel of sorts between the little scene being enacted outside my bedroom window of which I recently wrote--the baby birds being hatched and developing--and the things happening in my life. It does appear that what will happen with me will develop at a much slower pace. The bird babies, mockingbirds I think, from all the noise and the long mother and father's tails, have gone in just a week or two from fuzzy down blobs to about to fly members of the species.

The shrieks for mother to bring worms have become clucks and chirps. Today, they are not merely standing on the edge of the nest but on several of the bushes' thin limbs. She comes back to them to show them how to take off, and I think, occasionally she still brings them food. But she is trying to get them to leave the literal nest. It is hard to take a picture of them. I cannot approach them from the outside for fear mother will abandon or they will be unduly frightened. They seem to be used to me from inside, with the dirty window between us. Which is why the picture here is not as distinct as I would like. But you can see them, on the precipice of their lives.




Their life spans are so much shorter than ours. A sliver of it, in fact. Everything must be compressed into hours, and days, and weeks, where for us there are years, at least statistically. There are many precipices. Many opportunities, if only we do not become afraid, and refuse to leave whatever nest we have had built for us, or built for ourselves. Of course, really, we cannot refuse to leave. Just as these little creatures will be compelled by nature to leave the relative safety (relative for crows are everywhere!) of their three week home, we are compelled by nature or family or circumstance to leave our safe places. A home where we lived. A career that we thought axiomatic. A relationship on which we depended.

These baby birds have reinforced for me that I must go forward in whatever life has to lay before me.
These last days I have visited with friends. I have met a lovely 2 year old who played a little game of hide and seek and toasted with me. I tried (unsuccessfully) the delicacy of chicken feet at her parents' favorite dim sum place. I met up with an old college friend (who was the first to introduce me to Los Angeles when he lived here then in 1977 and I was not yet a native, or a driver) on Saturday and we enjoyed the fullness of a Venice Beach day, sun, sand, water and food. I saw Dolly Parton at the Hollywood Bowl and found out that she is quite a talented artist indeed (I guess I just had to see it for myself). I purchased "Final Draft" a program for scriptwriters, to return to that pursuit in my spare time.

I am afraid to leave this present nest as I was afraid to leave the one in the Bronx all those years ago. But as one of my favorite people used to say to me when I balked and worried, "I know of no other way". 

The baby birds are still calling and clucking for mother. They may not realize it, but they are about to be launched into the world.