Each time I have to repair something around the house it always starts with a feeling of dread knowing that said repair will take all day (or multiple days), cause pain from splinters or other self inflicted wounds and compel me to engage in mulple rounds of blasfemous language along the way. The latest repair involved repairing a “coyote fence” gate that had been in disrepair ever since we bought our home 7 years ago. The gate was somewhat useable before the repair but high winds recently just blew the thing off the wall it was attached to and left it in pieces on the ground. When I walked out the back door that morning and saw it on the ground, that familiar dread set in.
About the same time, I’d been observing a pair of spotted towhees preparing to nest in our front garden. These are gorgeous birds that spend most of the time hidden in the brush and providing only fleeting glances of thier beautiful plumage as they dart around looking for food. The exception is during the spring mating period when males take to tree tops to sing thier hearts out while the females labor away building nests somewhere in the brush below.
From my office window, I caught a fleeting glance of one of the towhees as they paused briefly in a tree outside. I immediately ran out and set up the camera by the front door and waited – hoping to get a couple of shots of the normally furtive birds. Soon, I saw the female drop into the garden with a beakfull of nesting material. Over the next hour or so, I watched as the towhee worked on her nest and reflected on the insecurity I might feel if we had to find a suitable site and rebuild our home each spring never knowing where or how that might play out from year to year. I reflected on how shallow it was for me to feel woe over having to repair a gate that I’d neglected for 7 years while millions of people (and birds) are forcefully displaced each year and have to journey to new – and often hostile – places seeking shelter and an opportunity to rebuild their lives.
As one who is fortunate enough not to have had to experience this – yet – I will always try to find ways to remind myself not to judge those who are experiencing it and to exhibit gratitude for what we have. I would encourage those who find themselves now depricating desperate migrants to do the same. If this displacement happens to us one day, I hope I’ll find solace in remembering the times I spent as one of the more fortunate humans on the planet. This towhee was a metaphor of just how my toils are minimum – if not purely imagined – compared to many others who are just trying to survive with almost no resources with which to do so. While reminding me of that valuable lesson, that towhee brought me a lot of joy as I watched her scampering around snatching materials that she needed to build her new home right here in our front garden.
Towhee nesting
Towhee in rose bush
“Coyote Fence” gate after repair