Fall's Migration
September 20, 2009 The letters keep pouring in. It’s actually quite surprising how fast a rejection is turned around. The bird feeders in our back yard are refilled just as fast as a query letter is sent back in that now dreaded SASE that mocks the efforts of several cathartic migrations of words revisited and revised.
Fall is starting to drop down and the light is beginning to escape under its veil. The birds are feasting already on the spent sun flowers. They stand like sentry over the beans and broccoli. The flickers, white crowned sparrows, and warblers feast on the seeds all day and bring their family and friends to peck at the cosmos and dahlias. Doves consume the fallen seeds on the rich soil below as I reach for words to be placed on the page in just the right expression of my waiting, my longing for the migration of the query to return to me with the appetite of my backyard birds.
I watch them twittering out there and imagine the holidays arriving with my family scattered all over the country now. The kids won’t migrate home this year for Thanksgiving. Since they’ve left it’s been a sporadic homecoming for that particular feast. They’ve branched out to experience their friend’s traditions, foods, and families. I miss their flitting about the house and yard, all of us sharing tales of where we’ve been and where we’ll be.
I wonder who will be sharing our table this year. Will the conversations lead to the book? Where is it at? Have we heard anything? These questions are starting to sound surreal to me. Did we really write a book? Are all the migrations of people that pass in and out of our lives really going to be able to read it in its published form? Are the birds looking at me through my window, pecking away at my laptop, wondering if I am eating the words on the page with as much obsession and joy as they devour their seeds?
My husband and I work hard with sweat on brow and dirt in fingernails helping to provide a home for all to come back to. The birds count on those seeds every year. They sing songs of pleasure and excitement as does our family around the table laden with the squash and beans flavored with the basil and chives. My kitchen creations leave me numb by the time I sit, and I survey the faces of those I love with a humble pride. Humble in an honored sense that I have been so blessed and pride in the incredible people this family is made up of; each and every one, huge supporters of all my journeys.
My prayer is for the earth that sustains my family; for allowing me to turn her soil, to plant the seeds, to feed the birds so they will come back again. They know where the nourishment is planted. The earth has made me a part of this cycle and I accept the responsibility with grace and courage.
The family won’t always share the same tables every year. Some of the birds will find other gardens, other tables. The resources I gather for the dark times, the coming winter and the folding inward of my thoughts and energies are like the canned tomatoes popping on the table right now. When I open one up on a cold winter afternoon and put it on the stove to simmer into a rich spaghetti sauce I’ll remember the fall, the back yard birds and the laughter of my family always together in my heart.
And by that time maybe I’ll have more news of Parallel Journeys and its further fruition within the time and space planted for the hungry little birds in my life.
Journeying onward,
Kathy
Reader Comments (4)
Your words are a gift to my soul! Thank you dear friend. xoxoxoxoxoJ.
Lovely, Kathy. We keep evolving and moving forward in time and space on our path of life, with change as the only constant.
Wow...that was a beautiful tapestry...
Thank you for sharing your journey
I have finally read your words that make me speechless in response. You have a gift, my dear, and the eloquence in which you speak is priceless. I am proud to be connected as family; feel I can know you better through your words. Magnificent and powerful. I'm so proud of you and your dad!