The Bluebird of Happiness
My early childhood home was the very last house on what was euphemistically called a court, but was in fact a dead end street. This street ended in a thick hedgerow bordering a steep drop off that led straight down to a railroad track.
This dangerous cliff with its hazardous track below was strictly forbidden territory to me and my five siblings. One day around the age of four or five, having more curiosity than common sense, I crawled through a small opening at the base of those bushes and was rewarded with an extraordinary sight. There, perched on some spindly branches that jutted out over the cliff, was a small bird of vivid blue from the top of its head to the tip of its tail. Not a common jay, which were quite abundant in our neighborhood, but a truly brilliant bright blue bird. Even at that tender age, or maybe because of it, I knew that I was beholding something exceptional. I was mesmerized, awestruck and very grateful to be gazing at that bird. Though I never told anyone what I had seen that day, I have never forgotten it. Now, looking back, I consider that singular experience to be the first of several events that sowed the seeds of a lifelong love of the outdoors and the marvels to be discovered there.
My neighborhood was one of old Victorian clapboard houses with huge maple trees in front and a small but dense woods in the back. Having grown up with such verdant surroundings, it never occurred to me that city living and observing nature should be mutually exclusive. Among my favorite pastimes was going out into our front yard to inspect a large stone there, embedded with curiously shaped tiny fossilized creatures. Even better was overturning the large flat rocks bordering our garden after a good rain to watch the squirmy, scampering, crawly things that would wriggle away. Earthworms, centipedes and roly-poly bugs would all disappear in the blink of an eye, fleeing, unaccustomed to the sunlight.
I have equally fond memories of entering the shaded “forest” that was just steps beyond our back yard. Whether in the company of brothers, sisters and cousins while picking huge bunches of the violets that carpeted the wood in a lush deep purple, or alone, scouting for the perfect fallen tree trunk “table” to enjoy a solitary picnic, I always felt at home there, enveloped in the comfort of those congenial surroundings.
Though simple and fleeting, these early encounters with the everyday beauty and ordinary creatures that animated my small corner of the world, fed my imagination and filled my heart, nurturing an abiding sense of wonder and curiosity. Sixty years later, I am still essentially “looking under rocks”, searching for signs of urban wildlife in whatever nooks and crannies I might find them, in pursuit of those blessed sights and sounds that are the sweet gifts of Mother Nature.
