The sun came out this morning. I had been inside for so long as the winter’s clouds and cold had driven me away from the cold Canadian winter.
I’d been pretty faithful in feeding the birds over the long dark months. Lately, I’d noticed the redwing blackbirds and the other blackbirds they flock with, returning. I’d seen a dark bird with very long legs fly over as I lay in bed looking up at the sky one morning. That meant the blue herons had returned. I’d seen a duck on part of the pond that was no longer covered with ice a few days earlier. But it wasn’t until I went for an early morning walk that I realized what had happened.
No sooner had I stepped outside, than a multitude of bird songs filled the air. The chickadees were singing their spring song. A dozen Koy-la-reee’s of redwing blackbirds came from scattered spots across the marshy valley. Songs that reminded me of summer dotted the trees. A bluebird’s song came from a distant tree.
I knew where they’d been. I’d seen them atop live oaks in Florida, on palms in the Yucatan, in mesquite bushes in Texas. They’d had a lovely sunny winter while I’d shrivelled beneath the oppressive clouds. As flock after flock of Canada geese flew overhead, honking and endlessly reforming their ‘V’, I thought of the masses of them that must have inhabited some marshland of the south.
They knew enough to return when the time was right. A few weeks ago a robin had sat on a post overlooking the deep snow. But it wasn’t until today that I’d realized how much migration had been happening right outside my window while I’d hidden inside.
As I sat and basked in the blessing of the song of spring, I wondered if I and others were changing in a very imperceptible rate; imperceptible to ourselves, anyway. How had our trials and adversities changed us? It is certain that the day will come when we emerge from life’s difficulties and realize we’d grown slowly like the one or two birds that trickled northward whilst winter was still on the ground. It’s so easy to be consumed by what our life contains that we forget the big picture. The winters of our lives overwhelm us, but they also change us. In tiny bits we grow in understanding and knowledge from pain, sorrow, disappointment, etc. Probably like I never noticed how many birds had returned, we haven’t a clue how massive the changes have been in our lives. As I saw one or two redwing blackbirds, I didn’t realize how my entire experience outside was going to be so different because of them. I’d only seen a few, but in reality they were nearly numberless. Perhaps it’s that way with the changes within us. We may notice that we don’t fall into the same bad pattern we tried for years to overcome, but while we were working on that one thing, trying not to drown in the cares of life, we probably underwent incredible transformation that we haven’t the sight to perceive, yet.
The day of sunlight will come and the characters that we have developed will be as the symphony of the spring song, seen for the first time. The growth will always be gradual, but the full flavour of it won’t be apparent until we emerge from darkness into glorious light.
As I stood by the stream pondering these things, a large red shouldered hawk sat atop a crag not 20 feet away. Its rusty breast was huge. It looked massive, powerful and the called ‘kee yurr’ as the king of the forest. It saw me move, spread its wings and took flight. I watched the striped tail, as it headed up over the forest, banking on the breeze. I wondered when it had arrived. It was a glorious bird. Perhaps some of the changes within me were as momentous as it was, and as hidden as the day of its arrival for spring.
Nancy Sont is the mother of five. She lives with her family on a hill in a boreal forest in eastern Ontario, Canada. She is a stay-at-home mum who freelances for newspapers and magazines writing travel articles and nature books. Outdoor Life Magazine and Better Homes and Gardens have both used her work. http://www.travelwriters.com/nancyvsont/
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