Nesting

A twig. A piece of string. The beak dibbles the ground, stirs up nature’s debris. The bits and pieces of everyday litter. The bird selects, pulls up, flitters off. Comes back. Flits from spot to spot, branch to branch until another prize is found, secured in the beak. Off it flies to return once again, soon. What’s it doing?

Building a nest. One bit at a time. A small pile of material, growing to a blob of stuff. In a day or two a shape begins to tell. A curvature, a bowl like shape. Relatively round. Fluffy looking, but sturdy. A tuck of twig here, a fluff of seed pods there; the nest is building and becoming realized. Now. It’s ready for use.

The bird perches above the nest on another branch. Then flits down to test it. Walks a few circles within it, then settles in. Flies away yet again for a finishing touch. A crown of new material placed just so.

In time the mother bird settles in; next time she moves three eggs will be delicately nestled in safety of the nesting components…of their home. Warmth provided by the mother. Feeding attention to the bird by the male bird that finally appears. Now that the housework has been done!

Nesting. Providing a home. A place to rest, a place to birth, a place to raise a family. Home. A place to be but also a space in the mind. Where we dwell in thought and memory. Where we feel safe and protected. Where we know self and those selves close to us. Together we are defining each other. We are family.

And now we are mankind family. We build nests, too. We pull from life to find the materials to build a place where we are safe and whole and real. We flitter about the space and make it clean, and bigger, and softer and better than it was. We are making a house into a home. We are decorating it, furnishing it, shaping it and giving it dimension, color and texture.

We refresh the space. We recolor it; replace textures form time to time. We rearrange furniture and rooms, and their assigned use. We alter. We are never done fussing with the space. We are nesting. Over and over again. Defining spaces and places until we find…home.

Are we satisfied? Will we ever be? Is this a place to be, or an extension of presence, of ego of reaching for a larger ‘star?’ Are we fluffing our feathers or our egos? Is our preoccupation with the real world and meaningful or stuff that means little? Are we pretending to be something we are not? Or is this a real place, a real home in which we find love, and peace, and sustaining power to live and become more of whatever we can be?

Do we need the McMansion? Do we need two family rooms or living rooms? Do we need more bathrooms than bedrooms? Is this a hotel, or a home? Is this a shrine to success or pretension? Are we filling the home with what it needs? Love. Respect. Aspirations. Strivings. Accomplishment. Are we?

Perhaps the nest is an expression of who we are or want to be. But then that is different from pretension, isn’t it? We express ourselves in décor, in color, in furnishings of all sorts. It is our inner thinking writ on the surfaces of our life. It is an expression of who we are. I am. Not always perfect. Not always exactly stating what I wish. Thus the spur to alter it continually? To make it more me? To make it up to date? To make it comfortable.

Making a home. Of one or two, or three or five. The personal spaces of our life. A nest to some. A stage for others. But hopefully home to all.

How’s your home?

February 15, 2012