Birds in the honeysuckle

I forgot that I forgot to close the study window last night, so when I woke I thought a bird had flown inside. His singing filled the house. Birds sometimes enter my parents' house near Sisters when my parents are away; when they return they find feathers and poop and, once, a hard, tiny body.

But no, the bird had not flown inside. He was outside the study window. I found him perched on a limb of the ponderosa which drops so many dead needles onto my roof. Talking talking talking, that little finch, the same phrase over and over. Every so often the female, who sat on the nest they'd built in the honeysuckle, would call back to him.

I imagine the female was saying, "Do be quiet! Everyone knows you're going to be a father!"

The nest is so close to the house that I can't see it from inside, so after awhile I stepped onto the porch to see her better. I startled her, though, and she flew away.

*

For a few weeks after giving birth for the first time, I felt a kinship with all mothers -- all mothers, human or not. It was very strange. I felt like they were my sisters; I felt like I knew what they were going through (pigs suckling half a dozen babies! ow ow ow!), and also that I could learn from watching their parenting.

I don't feel that way anymore .. but it does please me that those two finches have chosen to give birth at my house. I can't wait to see the babies.

Ekwerkwe

I awoke this morning before anyone else and sat quietly, just sat quietly, in the family room. Raindrops on the skylights, light dim. A few months ago we ordered BendBroadband's version of Tivo, the box for which hums exactly like a fishtank; our refrigerator, it turns out, is also loud. Hmmmmmmmmmm.

I had slept all night in the crack between the kids' bed -- waking once in the night but too leaden to move to my own room. My eyes felt like (to borrow my husband's phrase) two piss holes in the snow.

I remember feeling like this in the mornings on camping trips: feeling stuffed-up and achy and incapable of motion. On camping trips, though, one can always climb outside the tent and stretch in the cold air. One listens to animals rather than mechanical hums. So I stepped out my door to get the newspaper.

It sounded like an aviary out there. So many birds talking! Call layered over call, like people's conversations at a dinner party.

I said hello to the quail crossing the street. They ignored me; but yes, I do feel better now.

Room to roam

Until we moved to Allentown, we lived in small towns. Each of our houses had a huge, huge yard and even more vacant land nearby. We'd spill out the door and play where we landed. We'd sneak over to the beekeeper's, or to the monastery, or down ingo the ravine or through the forest. I don't remember my mother supervising us. She must have; but she must have done so unobtrusively, because I truly do not remember it.

Which is to say: As a child I was free. I had the will to roam the space to do it in.

Then in ninth grade we moved to a house on a small lot (bigger than the lot I have now, but much smaller than we were accustomed to) -- and there was no place to go. We lived in a new development surrounded by other developments. We'd get on our bikes and just ... ride ... in a circle. Houses, houses, houses.

I hated high school. I wonder sometimes whether, you know, high school sucks for everyone; or whether I was unhappy because I was a new kid from the sticks and I had no place to roam.

So now I'm a parent and I moved to a small town, hoping to give my children the same freedom of movement that I enjoyed -- and what happened? My small town of 50,000 grew into a city of 75,000 in less than five years. All the vacant land is growing houses or golf courses. The roads are busy... I know that Bend is not Allentown. The forest service boundary is just 2 miles from here; there's Shevlin Park and there's the river. But still, when I see all the construction continuing despite the fact that none of the houses for sale in my neighborhood has sold in seven months -- well, I get claustrophobic. I worry for our freedom to wander as we please.

Bend calendar:

• Currant bushes beside the lava rocks are flowering; those in cooler spaces, not yet