A bluebird of happiness was at my front door today. Actually, two of them, a male and a female, visiting the nest box we put out on the front yard a week or two ago.
There I was, innocently laying down pine straw in the beds early this morning, in the sparkling sunlight, when I heard an unfamiliar bird call. I looked over my right shoulder, and spotted a male bluebird, flying toward me, closely followed by his mutely colored mate. They rested a minute on the box, then the male lifted his right wing, just as they say they do, sort of as a salute. He hopped over to the entrance hole and ducked inside, while the female kept guard on the roof. Then out he popped, and in she went! Their tails ducked in and out, as they apparently ate the dried up mealworms I’d been sprinkling inside. Then they flew off, ready to start their day.
I can hardly believe it. If you build it, they will come.
And this means Matthew was right, he probably DID see the bluebirds last week.
Last summer, I took a much-needed break and went to the mountains of North Carolina, staying at a lovely place called the Cataloochie Ranch. The name of my room in the ranch house was “The Bluebird.” And in fact, there were several bluebirds on the property, which I enjoyed watching immensely.
I wrote in my journal in that room for seven days straight, trying to untangle the mystery that my life had become. I woke up every morning, and looked out to the Smokey Mountains, their blue tops far away, a place where God waited for me.
At night, I surrounded myself with my books on the quilted bed in the safety of the Bluebird room, reading and writing, until the answers came.
Happiness, it seemed, was available to me. But first I had to let myself out of my self-imposed prison, a cage of my own construction. I had to get free of my own false belief systems and my self-imposed fears.
Fly free, the bluebirds said. Fly free, Jennifer.
And now, here it is…the bluebirds have come to roost, right in my own front yard. Happiness is right here with me, as I gently do my work, in the garden.
inthegardenofthedivine 