I sent a birthday gift of writing to my mom last week.
This piece was a reverie on springtime cherry blossoms over thirty years in two
countries and four towns. After I had mailed the packaged story, I sat at my
desk looking out at the one blossoming cherry tree in my yard and realized I’d
forgotten to include any photographs. I’ve got plenty: even from this season,
in this patch of earth, in this city of this state of one of the two countries
mentioned in the essay. After the birthday call with my mom, I promptly forgot
all about the long-agos of other cherry trees.
Several days ago I was out in the backyard doing some
cleanup work. There wasn’t a breeze but I kept feeling the white petals of the
flowers on the cherry tree raining down on my head and shoulders. I looked up.
I paused. I listened. Then I saw the silhouette of a bird high on a branch
overhead. It seemed as if the petals were falling from that particular place in
the tree. I imagined the bird was inadvertently bumping into those fragile late
flowers ready to be released in service to the coming of the leaves.
Yesterday I remembered to grab my binoculars to get a very
close up view of the reddest male finch I’ve ever seen, sitting on the cherry
tree branch in the yard. Quite surprisingly, I saw that he was actually picking
off each petal with his beak, nibbling on the inner edge of it and letting the
rest fall to the ground. Of course, this led me into a tiny research project
about what finches eat. I learned that they’re among the few birds who feed
exclusively plant materials to their nestlings; the adults are primarily
vegetarians themselves.
I have been watching finches over recent weeks in greater
quantities than I’ve seen in any other place I’ve lived. To date, I’ve found three
finished bird nests (at least two appear to be in use), and two more sites with
twigs and lots of action but no (as-yet) finished nests; I do not think they all belong to the finches. Even as I type this, I
hear and see more than a dozen finches (in pairs) dashing darting perched
singing preening and glistening among the diamonds of raindrops on the still
flowerless and leafless branches of one of the cherry trees.
I’ve been immersed in the cherry trees, the finches, the
rainfall, hail, thunder, breezes and blooming springtime of this place right
now, this week in northern California of my forty ninth year.
There is always a deeper way of being attentive to what is
around us. Early this morning on a social media site, I read that somebody
writes a thank you note every morning. It occurred to me that the person who
does so is in touch with gratitude for waking up, for life, for each breath, in
an abiding and never-take-it-for-granted sort of way. In a
present-in-this-place-and-time sort of way. This, too, is reverie. Reverie in
real time. Paying more attention to the actual finch goings-on than what I think they are doing; watching how these
two cherry trees look, smell, feel today…being curious and alert and grateful in a softly
meandering through the day sort of way.
All blog images created and/or photographed by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted.
