Homesickness & The Squeaky Swing Bird: Everyday Magic, Day 259

When I woke this morning, I felt that wild pang of homesickness, particularly given the snow (yet again!) that fell last night. Spring is upon Kansas, and I’m wintering along in Vermont. While I adore my students and the new faculty I’m meeting and talking with late into the night, I found myself wondering if it was too early to pack.

Back to my room mid-morning after a wonderful meeting with students, I lay on the bed, trying to power-nap myself back to full restfulness. But my body wanted to elongate and bend, and I ended up spreading a towel on the floor as a makeshift yoga mat and doing sun salutations and other yoga poses. Opening the window to let us some of the warming (like almost 40 degrees) air, the sun

finally back out after its week-long road-trip away from us, home came to me: the squeaky swing bird called.

I hear this bird loud and repetitive at home, a call like an old swing squeaking one way and then another, exactly what I was hearing back home a week ago. I opened the window wider and stood in Mountain Pose smiling. In an hour I would look up the bird sound on the computer and find (to my surprise) that this isn’t some rare spring bird, but the call of the constant bluejays.

Since then, walking across campus, I open my ears, ready to find its call. Squeak me home wherever I am, especially when the snow flies.

#BlueJay #Home #Travel