Flying Lessons

This story starts with a nest.

In the eaves of a front porch, in Nashville, at my brother’s house. Where I was on vacation.

Little brother is usually pretty particular about the general order and cleanliness of things. An organized sock drawer when he was 6. Cleaning out my car when he was 12 (and I was 20). A spotless house, categorized bookshelves, and—do not get me started on his cooking prep stations.

Which is to say, you’d think that the idea of birds setting up residence in his personal space–and all the mess that implies–would send him running for the rubber gloves and disinfectant.

But he let them stay. No eviction notice. Because some things just need to be left where they are.

And so four eggs came to stay, on a high wall, in a small corner, of an immaculate house, in Music City.

For weeks, my brother Chris and his wife Megan watched these birds hatch, then feather up. Watched the daddy bird (these are egalitarian creatures) come and feed the babies several times a day. Watched them outgrow that nest.

So that by the time I showed up, with my own hatchlings, they were about to fly the coop. And then our mom came too, so now it was a family event, this nightly bearing witness on the patio. To watch, to wonder, “Will they fly today?”

As you can imagine, my children became deeply invested in this cause.

We watched a couple of evening feedings. The bird was a small finch of some kind, with a red head. I Googled “finch, red head” to find out what kind of bird family we were watching.

They are–wait for it–Red Head Finches. Well.

Some things are just exactly what they are, and do not need words to make them fly.

For three days, we watched.  On the third day, as we were leaving for a restaurant, my daughter spotted a dead baby bird on the ground, beneath the porch, beneath the nest. “That was Orville,” she said matter-of-factly, as my brother gathered the remains (yes, rubber gloves and all). She had, of course, named them.

It was a somber moment before dinner.

We came home after and proceeded to the patio. Three left in the nest. (Commence singing: There were three in the bed and the little one said …) 

Maybe they were restless after mourning their brother. Maybe we disturbed them. Maybe they knew we were rooting for them, or perhaps it was just too perfect an evening in the south to be still in that pile of sticks any longer. But one of them (“Wilbur!” says my girl) jumped to the edge, lifted a tentative wing to the breeze–and flew. A rise and a dive. And perfect landing in a nearby tree.

Loud cheering from the human spectators. The neighbors probably think we’re nuts. But it’s not every day you witness a miracle of evolution. The triumph of a small thing in a world that destroys what is vulnerable; a beauty set free, in a world that sees beauty as something to hold and possess.

Some things survive. Some things make it off the ground.

So, whether annoyed or possibly motivated by our overzealous cheers, sister Amelia followed into the air. A swoop and an upswing. (The minor fall/the major lift…) And she was off. Landed in the tree next to her brother.

More cheers. More clapping. More urging the last one out into the wild.

By then it was dark. We went to bed, and early the next day, I loaded up my brood and headed for points north. For other family and other porches.

Right around dusk (which was the bird-watching hour), on the other side of the state line, my son runs up to me. “Text Uncle Chris! See if the other baby bird flew away!”

“Yes, right after you left!” he answered us. “I could tell he was close, so I shouted some encouragement and off he went!” (Insert lots of emojis, because he knows the kids love emojis).

“A 75-percent house success rate!” adds Aunt Megan.

I’d call that not too shabby, as minor and major miracles go.

The daddy bird that fed those babies … his head was amazing bright red, a flaming Phoenix. Wings tipped red, as if dipped in ink; poised in flight to write the story of the world.

Those babies, though, were a drab brownish gray. The color of earth and dirt that is not quite anything yet. And as they took that first dive into the open, all I could think was … Do you have any idea how beautiful you’re going to be, one of these days?

Some things are just exactly what they are. They do not need words to make them fly.