In Remembrance

Today is my mother's birthday. She's been gone for 5 and a half years. In some ways that seems incredible. In some ways the time and distance is the only reason I can even speak about the loss of a woman who was such a powerful influence in my life. I wish I could ask her all the things I didn't think I needed to know then, but do now. Cherish people while you have them.

When Good Hobbies Turn Bad

There was a time when I was the queen of hobbies. I must have taken up dozens of hobbies which having experimented with, I quickly put back down. I suppose I had a need to feel accomplished, and goodness knows I reveled more in the accomplished tasks than in the actual practice of whatever hobby I had chosen to pursue.

I learned to knit from instructions in the Book of Knowledge, a vast encyclopedia of facts, geography, fairy tales and lessons in everyday life that was my constant reference when I was young. But knitting was tedious work, I soon found, and having begun with the intentions of knitting fabulous sweaters, I ended up making several pairs of mittens and one or two hats once I had discovered the joy of circular knitting needles.

I am afraid the same held true for crochet. Plans for large, warm afghans to cuddle up in on chilly winter nights ended up being pillows or afghans done in a large, open woven design that did little to keep in warmth but reduced the time it took to finish a project to a couple of days at most. I found crochet to be even more tension-causing than knitting and I am still not sure if several loose fillings were a result of the teeth-grinding that usually accompanied each row of crochet.

I turned to the arts, with an eye to "learning" to draw and paint. Much work went into learning how to produce a few things - a square-rigged ship, an apple blossom - despite my frustrating lack of ability to realistically render three-dimensional objects into two dimensions. I have two or three pieces of artwork that were produced during this period. They are sufficiently well done to elicit the approval of friends who can't draw at all but I would never show them to anyone who actually possesses any artistic talent.

It may be that writing is simply another one of these hobbies, except that I never studied writing, never planned any writing, don't bother working hard enough at it to cause my teeth to shatter and can't say if I ever produced anything worth the reading. I think of all my hobbies, it may be the one I do just because I like to do it. Perhaps that's more important than whether or not I do it very well.

His Eye is on the Sparrow - The Sparrow is on the Windowsill

I don't have any great affinity for birds, but neither do I gave any great dislike of them. I know one person who is deathly afraid of birds, but I consider them to be mostly harmless - tiny dinosaurs with feathers. They haven't the brain power to plot evil deeds, so what is there to worry about? Birds basically do what instinct tells them to do in order to survive, and sometimes they don't even do that very well. For instance, they can't tell a reflection on a window from open sky, leading to costly mistakes in their flight plans.

Some years back I wrote about bird omens on another blog. I got lots of interesting feedback on birds and omens and what they all mean. I found myself wondering why birds play so many roles in superstition.

I have now experienced the odd sight of sparrows sitting on my windowsill twice in a matter of days. The first time, one perched on the sill just outside the window near my computer. He looked around but not at me, and then flew off. I thought it was interesting, but not very notable.

This morning two sparrows alighted just outside my kitchen window. One was on the sill and the other landed in the rather overgrown bramble bush that is threatening to swallow that side of the house. I think the first sparrow on the sill had something in his mouth, something the second one seemed to want to claim as his own. The second one made an attempt to connect with the first, who lunged at him (I can't explain how a bird lunges, try to imagine it). The second bird took that as a "no" I guess and flew off. Seconds later the first sparrow left as well.

There are many omens about birds and windows and houses, but a search on the net yielded no information about birds being omens if they just sit on the sill and have a bird conversation. Still, just the overwhelming number of bird superstitions made me a little anxious.

I found that the most commonly believed omen is that if a bird flies into your house or into your window that it is an omen of death. No problem, the bird wasn't in the house, nor did it hit a window.

But it was the sheer number of bird omens that amazed me. For instance, if a bird taps at your window, the number of taps is the number of days till death. A little bird sitting on top of your house means death too. That one seems a bit suspicious, as birds often sit on top of things, they are up there most of the time after all. Yet, I haven't seen a sudden rise in the neighborhood death rate due to birds landing on rooftops.

An owl screeching signals death. A raven on the roof signals death. A swift down the chimney signals death. There's not a lot of variety or imagination when it comes to bird omens.

A rooster seems a particularly dangerous bird to own. Whether it looks at the yard, crows outside the door, crows inside the door or refuses to crow at all, it probably signals death. Better to just get an alarm clock, I think.

Here's my favorite one of all: If a Whippoorwill sings in a graveyard, it is a sign of death... Umm...okay.

Now I am not a superstitious person. The main reason for birds landing on my window sills is probably that there is an unusually high bird population in this neighborhood and a sill is a convenient place upon which to land.

Sparrows should be a good omen. The Bible mentions them specifically, and states that God has His eye on them. It doesn't say He sends them out to be tiny, feathered, grim reapers.

Still, I am glad that I didn't have the kitchen window open on this particular morning, for then I might have had a bird in the house. According to my research, that could still turn out alright, provided that you don't allow the bird to leave the house still alive.

Then you have to wonder, which is worse? Letting a sparrow out alive and tempting the omens? Or killing a sparrow that God has been watching over?