Whatever time in your life it is, it’s time to tell your story. Those thoughts are running through my mind right now on this lovely spring Sunday morning, I’m sitting on my sunporch with all the sliding windows open. A bird flies down to perch on the shepherd’s crook in front of me and chatters away before she jumps down to the bird feeder hanging there. It’s a gift from Bill & Joyce Lindenmuth complete with bird seed that has given me pure pleasure.
Other birds come to join her as she continues chattering between pecks at her lunch. I think she is telling her story to them. The bird next to her, looking like a sister, seems to listen before she answers with her own tale of joy. Another bird, a cardinal flies to the crook sampling the water hanging there in a handcrafted pottery dish. That’s a gift from my late friend Anne Peterson. What memories come to me from the simple act of sitting on my sunporch on a Sunday morning.
Last year I planted Butterfly bushes along the sunporch that are growing under the shepherd’s hook. They have survived the winter and will soon add more nature, butterflies & dragonflies, to this little area in the city. One hummingbird has already blessed the bushes by flittering around the leaves last week. Before I moved from Macon two years ago hummingbirds came every year flitting from front porch to back deck adding beauty and wonder to my day. I’m so happy to see they have found me again.
How often do we think of a gift given, sometimes even years, after the moment we received it? Mostly we remember the excitement of the moment. But gifts are tremendous memories for us. Sometimes the memory is not receiving a gift when we expected one. Disappointments are part of our stories, too.
Another gift that I’m enjoying is a bird house hanging eight feet from the bird feeder. This was a gift given at least five years ago from Diane Ratliff. Her husband makes these beautiful homes for birds to nest in. A family of birds is also enjoying my gift. I think of them as townies.
Well, I started out to tell you why it’s time to start writing your own story and to let you know that I have a few spaces left for my workshop on Saturday. But I have gotten caught up in my own memories. . . .that seems to be how it goes.
