For the Love of Dirt: I Can Hear the Birds....

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

I Can Hear the Birds....

"She turned to the sunlight and shook her yellow head. And whispered to her neighbour: 'Winter is dead!'. "
-A.A. Milne (When We Were Very Young)

I remember a Spring long ago, when I was about 12, my mother made me a daffodil yellow cape, with a hairband of white daisies, finished with spit and polished shiny shoes. I thought I was so fashionable. I stood outside under our ancient willow tree. I posed.Over and over. My mother snapped the camera. I could hear the birds. Long and loud and loud and long.....

Easter was not far off. Everything was new.Fresh. Clean. And the birds sang.

It came with sweet winds and cherry blossoms. The willow tree in our yard was frothy with long leaves on massive tendrils. It looked like a fairy nymph waving its fingers in the breeze to those singing birds. My mother had me take her picture amongst the willow branches.

A few years before, my father died on an early spring day in March. I heard the birds then as well. My mother did not dwell on that time, in years to come. It was not her way.But I remember her standing outside, as the years passed by. She listened to them in the morning when they were the most joyful. In her bare feet. On the walkway she would stand. Her eyes closed. A cup of coffee in her hand.

The birds sang Loud and long, and long and loud.

And many years afterwards, when my mother died, on the same day in March that my father died, I stood outside and heard the birds again. I had not noticed them for a long time. I had forgotten. Then I heard them. All fresh and new......

"I glanced out the window at the signs of spring. The sky was almost blue, the trees were almost budding,the sun was almost bright...." -Millard Kaufmann (Bowl of Cherries)

It took me back to each year before, when my mother would spring clean. That meant washing the wool rug with soap and water, in the front room on hands and knees. It meant walls and baseboards and polishing floors.

She also liked to clean out the fireplace. With the old horsehair brush. Soot would fly.While she did her cleaning, my mother would get me to practise violin. So she could listen. I would play every piece I knew and then start again. Then it would be piano after that. Scales. Arpeggios. ....Anything, so I wouldn't have to spring clean.

My mother would open the front door. "I can hear the birds," she would say.

My mother would never say how much she liked listening to me play. It was not her way. She wiped windows squeaky clean. I played. The birds sang. In a way, we were all jamming together....

When I grew up and moved to California to finish my Masters, those Spring Cleaning days were no more. Except for one March when I had to do my degree recital. My mother unexpectedly mailed me a parcel.....

It was a rose satin gown she designed for me to wear for the concert. Told me she wasn't spring cleaning that year. Told me she expected pictures. I wore that rose satin gown . Pictures were taken. Photos sent to my mother . She didn't say much on the phone later. It wasn't her way to be gushy. She was gone about a year later.......