THIS ARTICLE IS FOR THE BIRDS

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(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

“HEY! You’re stealing all my birds!”

So said the neighbor (who was kind enough to push my car out of the snow) when he saw me filling the bird feeders this morning.

Upon moving into our new place, we found an old bird feeder laying in the yard, half buried in the snow. I brought it into the house, “thawed it out,” and cleaned it up. I bought a bag of birdseed, filled it up, and set it on the railing of our small back porch. It is just outside of the door where we can watch the birds easily.

It is amazing how quickly the birdseed disappears! That feeder has been empty each day when we come home. We are wondering how early in the day it is actually all gone. The birds must be spreading the word, bringing all of their friends around for lunch at our place. Looks like we are feeding the whole neighborhood now! There is a increasing number of bird tracks daily in the snow. In order to keep up with the demand, we bought another feeder and a suet block. Both of these are now hanging in a tree in the back yard.

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While unpacking, I found my book on birds of the eastern United States published by the Audubon Society. It’s a nice book with tons of photos. It’s very helpful when attempting to identify birds. Now we are keeping this book handy. It is becoming common to see us peaking out the back door, whispering, while passing the Audubon book back and forth.

I inherited my bird watching tendency from my mom and my grandmother. When I was young, they both often pointed out different birds. They both seemed to appreciate the abundant variety of birds, with all of their different sizes, colors, characteristics. As a kid, I learned to appreciate these things too. My grandmother lived in the country. There were birds everywhere. I had a bird book back then too, a small one with photos of birds for the northeast area of the States. I was eager and determined to spot every bird in that book.

Several years ago, an interesting thing happened to me in relation to a bird. It was shortly after my wife and I split up. I was driving the “Blue Bomb” home from work one day. I was very depressed. There was a scene playing over and over in my head in which I imagined my wife with a different man, happier than ever. At that time it was a tormenting thought. It was a hot day in the summer of 1997. I was driving down the highway, deep within my imaginations, when I saw something coming straight for my open driver’s side window. It was coming down out of the clear blue sky – not flying across the road or down from a tree. Suddenly I realized it was a bird and it smashed with a sickening sound into the frame of the car window just behind my head. It was a sparrow. It left blood and feathers stuck to the car. Immediately, I remembered something that Jesus said:

“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.” (Matthew 10:29 – 31)

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It was almost as if God threw that sparrow right out of the sky and nearly hit me in the head to wake me up! It sure changed my perspective on the situation. I am not one to advocate mysterious signs from God. But this incident was a little out of the ordinary. Any other bird would not have had the same effect. A sparrow simply standing along the side of the road waving at me would not have done it. This one came hurling out of the sky and reminded me that there was something, Someone, bigger than the issue tormenting my mind. I saved a few of the feathers from that sparrow.

Well… So far we have spotted several different birds at our feeders. There have been many sparrows, mourning doves, starlings, blue jays, finches. This morning I was able to get a picture of a downy woodpecker on the suet block. I learned from our book that it was a female because it was lacking a red spot on its head. Another frequent visitor is a bird that I at first mistakenly thought was an oversized chickadee. After consulting the Audubon book, I found out that it is actually a dark-eyed junko. These seem to be the most abundant of the birds right now. I got a nice picture of one just outside our door this morning.

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Actually, I think the neighbor is happy that all the birds are coming to us. He mumbled something about how filling the feeders every day is a pain. We don’t mind (yet). There is something about bird watching that echoes with a primal desire for discovery within us. I am happy to see that my kids share this now. T said we should get more feeders. It is refreshing to see him interested in something like this and excited to learn. This is a good thing. When I see the sparrows at the feeder, I remember good things like these. I smile and I think, “God has brought me a long way since the days of the Blue Bomb! I shall fear not!”

Puzzling

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(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

PUZZLING…

Do you have any idea how long it has been since I sat down and worked on a puzzle? I don’t either. It’s been that long.

The photo above is a puzzle I started last night. It’s an Andy Warhol painting of a Campbell’s soup can. He did a whole series soup cans. The actual paintings are quite large. I saw them a few years ago at MoMA. I went to the museum with a girl who grew up in mainland China. The soup cans were displayed on a big wall. As we stood before the paintings, she was puzzled and asked, “Why would someone paint soup cans?” I didn’t know what to say? “Because… you know… He’s Andy Warhol… It’s modern art… This is America… and we like soup?” (HERE is an article about the possibilities of the origin of the soup cans.)

As we continue to arrange our new home, we are going to make a retro cafe/lounge in part of the dining room. We have been tossing around ideas of lava lamps and shag carpeting. T thinks the puzzle would look good framed and mounted on the wall in the cafe. I agree.

Now below is a photo of a puzzle that my mom gave me for Christmas. “The World’s Most Difficult Jigsaw Puzzle” Over 500 pieces. Double-sided. Smiley faces??? I have a sneaky suspicion that I won’t smile much while attempting to put this puzzle together. This may be the puzzle that ruins it all for me, as it ironically smiles at me and taunts me.

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LAST NIGHT, WE HUNG PICASSO

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(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

THE NEW PLACE is starting to shape up and take on the characteristics of a home finally. The washer and dryer are in, curtains are up, and a few decorations are on the walls. It is slowly but surely becoming “our” place.

My good friend Laura, a displaced Jersey girl living in Virginia, generously gave us the washer and dryer, as well as a sofa bed and love seat, along with several other things. She was even kind enough to drive T and me from New Jersey to Virginia this past Saturday after visiting her family. It is rather humorous to see this girl, with her New Jersey accent and attitude, mingling among the Southerners in Virginia. That dang Yankee! So generous that I bet she’d give up a kidney or two for a friend in need.

T and I rented a small U-haul truck to bring our newly acquired laundry equipment and living room furniture back to New Jersey. It was a beast of a vehicle! The doors did not seal very well when closed. The faster I drove, the louder the sound of the wind coming through the edges of the door. It nearly drove us nuts. Plus, part of the storage area of the truck extended over the top of the cab. We both hit out heads several times getting in and out of the truck. The first indication that the truck was a jalopy was the strong oil fumes that came through the heat ducts when we turned the heat on. The second was the old oatmeal cream cookie T found in the glove compartment. Ewwww. I was so tired and still not over a nasty cold that I pretty much went straight to bed when we got back home at 9:30 on Saturday night. We unloaded the truck on Sunday afternoon after one of T’s friends came over.

I hooked up the washer and discovered that the valves on the water lines for the washer hook ups leak. Hooking up the gas line for the dryer required a run to Home Depot for new channel locks since mine are who knows where. It sure was nice to do laundry in my own home again. I didn’t do laundry for seven years! Not in my own home at least.

After dropping the truck off on Sunday, we picked up J. He came over and cleared out most of the things that were piled in the living room, putting most of it in the attic. What a tremendous difference that made! I then made a last minute trip to Wal-Mart before they closed and bought curtains for that room and the dining room. When T saw it he said, “Wow! It actually looks like a ‘living room’ now instead of a storage unit!”

We placed our table in one of the corners of the dining room near the windows. The chairs have a light green color on the cushions. I bought curtains to match. This corner is bright and colorful. It has some culture to it. It is in that corner that we hung Matisse and Picasso prints, along with a black and white photo of Picasso. In addition, on the oversized windowsill we placed two large art books. One is on Matisse and Picasso from the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The other is a book on M. C. Escher. I was happy to see T and his friends flipping through these books.

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There is a good atmosphere of creativity in our home. In addition to some of the artwork now on the walls, there is a lot of musical activity going on. T and his friends have been learning to play guitar, making up songs and learning some of their favorite songs from other bands. One of his friends brought an eight track digital recorder over. One day while I was practicing, they tried to sneak into my room to record me. I stopped and said, “Uh… why are you crawling into my room and what are you holding out in front of you?” It was a microphone. We then hung the mic from the ceiling light. I proceeded to play while the boys experimented with the effects on the recorder until they got it sounding pretty good. A few people have stopped by to see the house for the first time lately. As they stare at the long black cord wrapped around the light with a puzzled look, I have to explain that we are currently living in a recording studio. Last night, the boys set up a more permanent arrangement for the recording equipment in T’s room. From there we can run mic cables down the hallway to the other bedrooms for recording purposes.

As a father/musician, what more could I ask for? I know where my son is. His friends know that they are welcome in our house. They have even shown their appreciation by making dinner one night. Last night they baked cookies. They helped us move and arrange things in the house. They have let us borrow tools. They have given us rides. I have provided dinners and a decent place to “hang out.” I have listened to some of their musical endeavors, pointed out what I thought was very good and offered some suggestions to stretch their creativity. This is all good. This is home as I want it to be.

A Room of Smiling Friends

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(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

I have been finding so many things that have been “out of sight, out of mind” while they were sitting in storage for over a year (mostly books read a long time ago). This is a find that brought back a good feeling as when one remembers an old trusted friend. It is a book called “Streams in the Desert” by Mrs. Charles Cowman, a book of daily readings. This is the third time that I “discovered” this book. The first two times were while in the midst of divorces. I found an old copy of “Streams” on a bookshelf in a little church while going through my first divorce. I fell in love with its encouraging words. Years later, while struggling through my second divorce, I remembered the book and purchased the copy that you see in the photo. This time I have found it under better, happier circumstances. Opening its cover and reading the words for January 21 was like entering a room of smiling friends and being welcomed into their conversation. I am eager to bring my day to a close tonight, sit in the silence of my new bedroom, and “listen” to this book again.

The View

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(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

The view from my new bedroom window…

Speaking of windows… we finally bought a few curtains for my room and T’s room. Doing so was an exercise in frustration! T found something he liked fairly quickly. I had problems. Drapery issues. You see, I have a double window on the side of the room facing the street and a single window that looks out on the view above. Among the curtains at the store, I found either a color/design that I liked that would fit the double window and couldn’t find a matching set for the single window, or the other way around. After many mumbled curses on my part and a chorus of moans and growns from my sons which grew steadily and began to sound like a death chant, I came across sheer burgundy drapes sold in single panel packages. Problem solved. One panel for the single window, two for the double. And the burgundy goes well with the drum set! What else matters? (They also match the spiffy outfits in my Partridge Family photo. I’ll explain the photo some other time.)