Thoreau and Me

Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.

Robert Frost

We have five newly hatched baby birds in our barbecue. It’s not the first time. Several years ago, a robin squeezed through the tiny air vents on the sides of an old propane grill, which my husband had designated as a ‘smoker’, and built a nest. On Sunday afternoons every week, when the grandchildren were here for dinner, we had a nice little ceremony of opening up the cover of the barbecue and letting each child take a turn looking at the nest with four tiny eggs. The mother bird was not happy, but I reminded her a couple of times that at least no one had turned on the gas.

Now we have a new nest filled with scraps of straw and a couple of dozen brightly colored feathers, the mama bird—this time a starling, I believe–found in her travels. One afternoon, I spent ten minutes watching her figure out how to add a six or eight-inch black and white feather (magpie?) through the tiny slot into her nest. I wouldn’t have believed it, but she managed to angle it with such geometric precision, it slipped into the hole without a sign of damage to the plumage. (So much for the idea of “bird brains”.) Her eggs are a brilliant blue, and she is quite irritated when we open the cover to see how her little family is doing. But mothering has never been an easy job.

Though I’m far too impatient to qualify as an official birdwatcher, I’ve always liked birds. I keep a small handbook of Utah birds in the back of my silverware drawer, so I can pull it out at a moment’s notice when an unusual bird lands in the mimosa tree outside my kitchen window. I use it considerably more often than one might expect. There’s something soothing and reassuring in taking the time to watch another species successfully confront the problems of daily life. I’m not the only one who feels that way.

Henry David Thoreau’s book Walden was part of the curriculum for my junior honors English classes. He was a huge proponent of reducing the complexities of life by living more in tune with our natural surroundings. When some colleagues and I attended a national marketing teachers convention in Boston, we rented a car and visited Walden Pond, where the famous book was written. Thoreau’s tiny one-room cabin has long been designated a national historic site. It has a small single bed, a desk, a fireplace, and a corner table with a chair or two in case of visitors. Sitting on land owned by his buddy Ralph Waldo Emerson, his friend encouraged Thoreau to build an escape from the tumult of community life. (An aside: They were such close friends that history mentions Thoreau digging a garden plot for Emerson as a wedding gift.) But even then, it was barely a mile or two on an oft-traveled path outside town, and Walden Pond was a popular recreation site for local families. I sympathize with Thoreau’s desire to retreat—to take time to listen to the birds whispering above him and hear the wind sighing in the trees.

Immediately after Son #1 and his wife married, they took a summer job managing a family lodge and campground just outside the entrance to Yellowstone National Park. My daughter-in-law told me that one afternoon after a long day of cleaning cabins and handling individual guest problems, she took one of the compound’s jet skis and headed out across the long, narrow lake adjacent to the lodge, hoping to shake off some of the tension of her day. It was just before dusk, and the sun was hanging barely above the mountain peaks in the distance, its rays highlighting a path across the gentle waves rippling in front of her.

She pushed the throttle hard and leaped across the water, speeding away from the lodge, leaving its problems behind her. There was not a single other boat or watercraft within her view, so she was somewhat startled when she realized she had a traveling companion. Only a few feet overhead—close enough she could see its claws glittering in the sunlight—an eagle spread its magnificent wings and glided with her. It soared alongside her for almost 20 minutes, spanning the full distance of the lake. Several times over the years, she’s mentioned that moment as one of the defining memories of her life.

Since I retired and am no longer required to spend every waking moment crossing items off my to do list or prepping for tomorrow’s jobs,  I’ve noticed I have to consciously set aside the momentary guilt I feel when I spend an unencumbered hour watching our mother bird as she perches on the edge of her nest and brings her babies scraps of food plucked from nature’s backyard grocery store. I hear the tiny creatures calling to her, their outsized yellow beaks open for the treasures she brings. It’s in those quiet moments watching a new generation of birds unfold before me, I can suspend the worries of tomorrow, and like Thoreau, find peace in being part of the great blueprint of Heaven.