Heart

“I did generally announce to the robin population that there were going to be some ground rules.”

There a robin’s nest on my front porch. The babies hatched about a week ago, and I’m mildly obsessed with catching glimpses of them. The best view is from the couch, lying down, and a few days ago I fell asleep twice while watching them.

Regular readers may remember that there were robins on my back porch last year. That was interesting, but stressful. I couldn’t sit out there without being harassed, and I could only see them from the kid’s room, which meant I needed her approval to observe them. I was away when they left the nest, and she did an excellent job describing the events.

I didn’t want them on the front porch. They were so aggressive last year. I couldn’t imagine dealing with that while going in and out of my apartment. I knocked down the first nest, after checking that there weren’t eggs in there yet. The next day there was a robin on my porch when I came home, looking at me sternly. He rebuilt the nest. I gave up my resistance.

I did generally announce to the robin population that there were going to be some ground rules. No attacks while I was coming and going, no indignation on their part. This has generally been respected, though I did have to remind them a few times in the early days. I’d loudly announce “You chose this!” if they squawked, which I’m sure looked totally sane to people walking by.

The babies are huge now. The two of them barely fit in the nest. They’ll leave soon. I am, of course, emotional about this. My own baby is leaving the nest soon. She went to he prom last night, decked out in dramatic, grownup plumage. On Thursday, she walks in her commencement ceremony.

She’s really amazing. I told a friend and admirer of hers that she is who I’d wanted to be at her age. She braver than I was, more sure of herself. She wears clothing that I wished I had the guts to wear back in my youth. She keeps getting tattoos, completely confident that she’ll never regret them. I still have never gotten a tattoo because I couldn’t settle on anything.

She’s amazing, and I wouldn’t change anything about her. I frequently review all the things I wish had gone differently for her. Some of those things I had little power to stop, others resulted from choices I wished I’d made differently. I should have pulled her out of the preschool that was so stressful for her. I should have made more of a fuss about other school things that made her miserable. I should have handled the guy in Star Market who told her to smile better.

She actually called me out about the Star Market guy. He was giving out samples, she was pouting. He told her she’d be prettier if she smiled. Then looked at me for approval, like he was helping me with a disobedient child.

He was an older Townie guy, clearly not thrilled to have been given this job giving out bits of meat on sticks. I didn’t want to be high-handed with him. I kind of grew up Townie, and kind of didn’t, and I sometimes get hyper-concerned about looking conceited. So I gave him a wan half-smile and maybe a little performative “ha!” and headed for the next aisle.

Rosie was furious with me. Why didn’t you defend me? Why didn’t you tell him I’m beautiful whether I’m smiling or not? She was right. I felt like an asshole. I’d let my own dumb insecurities and fear of judgment get in the way of protecting my kid from an asshole.

Robin parents have it easy. Build a nest, put some eggs in it and sit on them for a few days. When the eggs hatch, fetch worms and bugs and drop them in the kids’ gaping, insistant mouths. The kids get big and fly away, and that’s that.

In flights of fancy, I can imagine the parent birds fretting over whether they brought the wrong worms or weren’t affectionate enough when they delivered them. They don’t really. They’re birds. They do the stuff they do out of instinct and they never write blog posts about it.

I’m human, so I stare out the window and project all of my ridiculousness onto them in an attempt to find some clarity.

One of the babies is flapping its wings. I think today’s the day they’ll fly. I’ll stay near my couch and hope to catch the moment. It all goes by so quickly.