I am lucky to live in a condo with a deck that backs up to a wooded area.  You can’t really call it a forest because it is only about a city block deep.  Seems funny describing the woods in terms of city blocks but you know what you know.   I’ve seen deer, turtles, squirrels, chip monks and a wonderful variety of birds. 

Just recently I had the privilege of watching a pair of Blue Jays begin their family.  I’ve always been a lover of birds. Growing up my father kept bird feeders right outside the kitchen window and my former home had bird feeders in the garden; but I have never witnessed anything like this.

This Blue Jay couple began building their nest on the edge of the woods but something made them change their mind about that location.  They moved their construction to a large flowering shrub right outside my bedroom window and adjacent to my deck.  They were building not five feet away.  This seemed very unusual as blue jays are notoriously territorial and can be aggressive, why would they put themselves so close to me and my two dogs? That said,  I immediately christened myself a “safe place”.    I believed I was many people’s “safe place”  but having moved on from a life I knew for thirty years I was questioning many of those things.  This seemed to tell me that in all the things that had changed being a “safe place” was not one of them.

I watched them build their engineering marvel.  Working in complete cooperation with an “unspoken” delegation of duties, Mom apparently the architect and Dad the builder.  They worked strands of twig and grasses around the outside of the perfect v shaped nitch.  They reinforced and sewed with string, bits of vines and newspaper.  It was perfectly built and amazingly secure.  I would later watch through storms and wind but there was nothing to fear, that nest wasn’t going anywhere.

Once completed Momma Jay began her vigil.   Blue Jays form monogamous lifelong bonds and during this period Dad would feed Momma while she brooded the eggs.  The incubation period generally lasts for 16-18 days but I didn’t know that at the time.  What I did know was that I couldn’t keep my eyes off the nest.  Every morning when I opened my bedroom blinds I would check for Momma and wish her Good Morning.  I would watch her through the storms and while having coffee on my deck.  While I was watching Momma, Dadda was watching me.  Instead of flying around the corner of my deck he would fly right through the deck making it perfectly clear that he knew I was there. He never once became aggressive with me but I watched him damn near peck a squirrel to pieces.  It did my heart good to see how he protected her and his future family and I was proud to have his blessing.

I remember the first little beak peeking out from under Momma.  I was the proud Aunt in absolute wonder.  Then another little beak and another until all five eggs had been successfully hatched.  Momma finally got to leave the nest to help her mate forage for food.  Luckily there is a neighbor with a bird feeder so that task wasn’t as daunting as it could have been.  They carried on the feeding process over the next two weeks or so; each taking their turn foraging and feeding the kids.   

They began their lessons in earnest with leaving the nest for longer periods of time.  Momma would wait in a nearby tree and listen for the peeping.  She would actually wait for them to stop peeping before she flew back into the nest so they could get used to being on their own more and more.

Then there were feathers and I knew my time with them was short.  I continued to check on them and became a bit panicked when they could barely fit in the nest.  When the storms came I was vigilant in watching to make sure they all stayed in the nest but it occurred to me even if something happened to one of them there would be nothing I could do. There is a natural balance to things in their world; there are distinct boundaries and designated destinies.   This was a valuable lesson for me, one that should have been learned long ago.  For all the good I’ve ever tried to do there was much unintentional harm that came along with it.  Letting people fall is sometimes that best thing you can do for them, letting them pick themselves up is even better.  Consequence in nature can be devastating and final but consequence in the human world has the unexpected advantage of being enriching.

Shortly before I left for my Cape vacation they were gone.  I don’t know if they all made it but I am hopeful that the feathers I saw at the base of the shrub were leftovers from six lives lived in a small space.  The nest is still there and I see it every morning when I open my bedroom blinds which makes me think of them every day. Much like many of the people who have left my life, I hope for their good fortune, I hope that their destiny is enriching and that their consequences are beneficial. 

They can’t know the lessons I’ve learned from them about cooperative relationships that share responsibility and showcase individual strengths, about building a strong home that can endure the outside elements, about protecting your own while giving them the distance they need to become strong and learn from their consequences, about confirming my energy as safe and about letting go. 

In the natural world life is deliberate and purposeful, there is sheer survival and only the fittest will make it.  In the human world we have the luxury of choices, learning from our mistakes to live another day and free will.  It’s my hope that I can draw from both those worlds; to live deliberately and purposefully while using my choices wisely.