Baltimore Oriole
I love watching birds.
If you pull up to my house, you’ll easily see birdfeeders in front of the house. In the back yard there are more.
But the one I am watching the closest is the one that is being the least used.
My Baltimore Oriole feeder.
It’s Monday night and I am sitting at my kitchen counter typing this out to you and I keep leaning back ever so slowly to see if the Baltimore Oriole has arrived yet.
Not yet.
Sigh.
My friend texted me, “They’ll be here. You won’t miss it.”
It reminded me of when she told me about life, “If God’s got it for you, you won’t miss it. He will lead you to what He has for you.”
Last year, I didn’t have a Baltimore Oriole feeder. I had cut up an orange solo cup and put some grape jelly in it in hopes a Baltimore Oriole would see it and arrive to my basement abode. It didn’t.
When I moved to my aunt and uncle’s basement, I set up a new solo cup in hopes to lure a Baltimore Oriole in. It didn’t arrive.
But that spring, out in a boat with my son, I found one living in the tall flowering bushes at the corner of the lake. I would sit in the boat and try to knit (and was just able to again, proof my brain was beginning to heal from the trauma I’d been living in) and my son would slowly paddle across the lake trying to catch fish. We hardly spoke. It was if all our words had been said and we didn’t have new words to believe in yet, so we said nothing. The saying of nothing felt like a gift. We would float along the little lake and point to turtles or fish that were avoiding my son’s hook.
“Can we check on the Oriole?” I would ask. I really didn’t need to. Every time, without fail, my son would always nose the boat to the spot where I had seen the oriole. He would silently sit there in the boat and wait for me to see the oriole and let me watch it while it flittered amongst the flowering bushes before he would begin to row back to the dock.
I don’t have a single photo of that Oriole, but it is the one I see most vividly in my memory. The one I’ll never forget.
Back when I was married, I would text my friends and send regular bird updates via Facebook so we all could check in on the Baltimore Orioles we had. It was nothing for me to walk into the kitchen, catch sight of the elusive bright orange birds and nearly hit the ground as to not scare them (though looking back, this probably did scare them away!), then slowly I’d raise myself up to look out the window to watch them. I would whisper to all my boys to be quiet and call them close watch them with me.
They thought their mom was crazy. But it also always made them grin.
I knew the bird sound those orioles would make, and I could be doing any mundane task and hear the oriole sound clearly. I’d sit myself on the kitchen counter, contort my body to see out the corner window and watch them with fascination.
The same son who paddled me across the lake was also the son who had once purchased me an elaborate Baltimore Oriole feeder. It had holders for oranges and glass dishes for the grape jelly topped with a bright orange roof. It was by far the fanciest feeder I had ever seen. When we were able to go back to the house and get my belongings, this feeder was smashed to pieces amidst my clothes and other belongings thrown in about the garage. The log cabin bird feeder my youngest son had spent a large portion of his own money one Christmas for me was next to it, also smashed in.
The boys and I took the bird feeders we could find from the house we had once called home and friends purchased some feeders for us. The first day this spring I finally had alimony money arrive for me, I left the bank where I deposited most of it and drove to the nearby hunting supply store to purchase bird seed. I grinned all the way home.
When I was low and clawing for joy back when I was married, I had a day where I held my head down and tried not to cry as I washed dishes. “God, give me something. Please. Give me something. Give me joy, God.”
And my eyes caught sight of birds at my bird feeder. “I used you to take care of my birds, don’t you think I’ll have a way to take care of you?” I heard God say.
Just as I had my ears tuned to hear the Orioles, I had my heart tuned to listen for God. If you ask Him to show up and wait for Him to, He always always always does.
Birds have become something akin to holy to me.
I am oddly at a time where I keep thinking and sharing with those close to me, “Remember last year? Remember last year at this time? Remember what life was like then?”
I am just amazed, simply amazed and speechless, really, with how differently life looks now. Today is so different than 365 days ago.
And while it’s hard to believe life could be me much better than it is right now, I can’t help but wonder what 365 days from right now will be.
The thing about birds is that you can’t control them. This weekend, my son who had rowed me across the lake all those times to see the bird he knew I was anticipating, played Baltimore Oriole sounds over his phone for me as we sat at our first campfire in hopes it would call them in. It did not.
I can do my best to have the right food, the right mix, the feeders in the correct places to call in a bird, but I have never lived here in the spring. I don’t know if I’ll have Orioles or not.
But I am still living in anticipation of them. I am still preparing for their arrival.
All around me, my friends are posting the first photos of the Orioles. I can’t believe God created such a bright and vibrant bird with such a shrill song to sing. To see them feels like you are witnessing something of a miracle.
I feel like that’s been my whole last year. I have had zero control, just like you can’t control birds. (I wrote about that a little bit here.) I don’t know where I am going, I don’t know what is happening, but I know my God has provided for me. He used a myriad of people to help care for me and my children. And now He has made a way for me to finally provide for someone else. I set out my words and wonder if they are the right mix, in the right place, at the right time, to help someone else. When I receive a message from someone saying my words fed them, I feel like I am witnessing some kind of a miracle.
It floors me and fills me with absolute wonder.
Just like God gave me joy with the birds in the dark of my life, He has given me joy to share my dark to help others.
What could be a brighter more holy miracle than witnessing that?
To be so settled in a home that I can look from the stool at my kitchen counter to the peaceful, wide back yard and share bird updates with my friends again is a gift I do not take for granted. I lost that gift for a while. I missed it painfully. God gave it back to me. But He gave it back better. It is more precious to me this year than it has ever been in the past. I have never witnessed the various birds I have here at my feeders at this new home. I am able to buy whatever seed I want to feed all the birds that are native to my new environment. I am living in awe every single day to see what new birds show up at my feeders.
I am discovering what my new environment is here with the birds as well as in my life. I have never lived in this house before, I have never been in this place in my life before, I have never been free to make decisions like this before, and I am trying to do the hard (and fun) things to bring the best new life to me (as well as my children) …and I am living in awe to see what new experiences will show up in my life. What new adventures. What new joys. It’s kind of like I am mixing the best kinds of “lifeseed” up in my life to see what it brings to me.
I am waiting with bated breath to catch glimpses of Baltimore Orioles.
Imagine what kind of bated breath I am living with to see what new things God’s got orchestrated to bring into my life for me.
Because God kept His promise. He took care of me like He said He would that day I begged Him to. God did it in His own timing (which, by the way, wasn’t the timing I thought it should be…but was actually perfect timing. Imagine that.) He has weirdly given me this fascination with bird watching that reminds me all the time that He is watching out for me. He cared for me better than I could have imagined He would. I can’t wait to see what new things He will bring to my life…and they’ll be better than Baltimore Orioles arriving at my back porch, which is a pretty big deal to top, just ask those closest to me who are watching and waiting with me…for birds and for life.
Checking on you. Any Orioles yet?