Sunday, August 14, 2011

Bird Nests

When we moved into our house in June, there were two nests in the eaves. Even though the contractor and the architect said to get rid of them, I haven't had the heart yet. Somehow they seemed a symbol of building, of landing, of making a new life. 

We are finally almost settled, just in time for kids to leave for college.  I have been nesting all summer: unpacking boxes, moving things from here to there, finding space I didn't know I had.  It has felt like a homecoming unlike any other I have experienced.  The same has been true in my writing--for the first time in my creative life, I have my own desk where I can make a mess and leave it for morning and no one minds.

The novelist J. Courtney Sullivan said recently that, "When you write fiction you're like a bird making a nest." So too with being a mother, with feathering a nest.

No comments:

Post a Comment