June 2021

It all started on a Tuesday a few weeks ago.

I was working in the sunroom that day. It was sunny and warm and we had the windows open. I was engrossed in my work until something caught my ear:

A bird very clearly sang the first six notes of a familiar song, a song I'd been working on with one of my 2nd-grade students the week before.

I stopped what I was doing and listened for a moment. There it was again, bold, proud, and confident. I smiled, wondering if I simply hadn't noticed this bird singing in years past or if perhaps it was imitating a song heard from our piano lessons.

That week, all I heard was that bird's song. Inside or outside, morning, afternoon, or evening. I even awoke in the middle of the night to the melody repeating in my head. It began to haunt me. 

But then, as quickly as it came, it disappeared.

The next Tuesday, I sat in the sunroom, the window open and the breeze drifting through. And I listened for my familiar songbird but it didn't sing. The world outside felt muted, the chirps of the robins, the 2-note call of the chickadee, even the screech of the hawk in the distance.

Sometimes we don't recognize what's right in front of us until it's gone. When the world felt quiet that morning, I recognized that my familiar songbird was a small symbol of joy, a sign of hope.

Emily Dickinson wrote:

"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all."

Can you hear it singing?