The Birdhouse

Behind the house, in the field near the shed, there was a birdhouse. It was a big red house built from old material overlooking a patch of long grass. When we first moved into the house, we must have found at least 20 birdhouses around here. They were scattered all over the property. Some were on the ground and some were just up and around in random places. We gave away many of the houses but kept a few. This big red one was like an old comfortable shoe, it had to stay.

Time and weather beat the house into shreds. The roof blew off and the walls were separated. The house was falling to pieces. Every time something difficult happened to me, I’d walk out to the birdhouse and try to repair it where it stood. Eventually, mother nature took it down.

I started thinking about what is going on in the world. One of my friends is traveling to Ukraine to help the refugees. Many people tried to stop him but he said a familiar statement, “those who can, should do.” It is something my sister reminds me about often. I can’t go to Ukraine today, it isn’t something that I can do. I think about the destruction and the devastation and I have all this energy and frustration. I realized that I needed to do something productive that had a physical outcome. I started pulling together the broken pieces of the birdhouse.

I was able to save only one side of it, the face.

I chose to do something over nothing because it was important for me to do something with the energy.

I used reclaimed wood from old blinds and fences.

Taking shape and I am making a mess.

Super close to being done.

When it is completed and mounted back near the shed, I’ll post the image. For now, I am going to let the glue dry and find some paint to get it looking fresh.

While pulling this together, I’ve thought a lot about what it takes to put together a simple structure. It isn’t straightforward as it takes some thinking to put it back the way it was. It will never really be what it was. I’ve thought about the world in the same way. The events taking place in the world today are changing the world indefinitely. The only thing we can do is be prepared to pick up the pieces and start to rebuild. It won’t be easy because we will never be able to bring back those lost. We will never be able to rebuild every building as it was. We will never be able to fix the broken hearts. While things will never be as they were, we know from history that people will live on. We can be ready to help. We can be ready to rebuild.

To be continued…..