More Alive



I love linking today with

Jen and this sisterhood here:

Soli Deo Gloria at Finding Heaven.

I have finished the blocks in memory of my Grandma Marj.

Here is an excerpt from a little essay

I wrote of my memories with her:

After school in the breakfast room, over a glass of apple cider, a wooden bowl holding Triscuts , and a date-filled cookie, I remember Grandma Marj saying, “This morning I saw what I thought was a flock of cedar waxwings in the ash tree, Jodi, but when I looked it up, I found that they were Bohemian waxwings.” She spoke to me at six years old, like I was an Orinthology student in grad school, like I knew without a doubt what a unique treasure it was to have waxwings in the front yard. And, of course, I eagerly responded with a mirror of her reserved excitement as she so precisely pointed out the differences between Bohemian and cedar waxwings as illustrated in her well-worn green covered Field Guide to Western Birds by Roger Tory Peterson. She also noted the comparison information from her Birds of North America Golden Field Guide.

The Peterson field guide was always her favorite and regarded as the most superior to all other bird books. It was a birthday gift to her in 1966, from my Uncle Bob and Aunt Janet Klein from Homer, Alaska. I knew that it was a gift not only because it was a detail that Grandma would have shared with me, but also because it was written in my Aunt Janet’s handwriting on the first blank page as is customary in the VanDervoort family. Along with birds, books were also to be treated with respect and reverent interest. It was assumed that the book would be kept for years. A book was a gift from the heart of another to the heart of the recipient. This was a truth in our family culture that I knew as a child.

Now in reality, I did not know when I walked through the screen door in the garage that day what in fact a “waxwing” was. But I responded with studious interest. A new bird to add to the list was not to be taken lightly. It was a celebration, though not with outbursts of “hurrah” and applause and emotion. No, it was with whispered, wide-eyed excitement and wonder.

I was not sure if the quiet excitement was so as not to scare the birds away or if it was not to disturb my Grandpa Rand reading the newspaper—perhaps it was both. And perhaps outbursts of emotion were improper. They all weaved together I suppose. Even today, I have difficulty allowing excitement and passion burst forth. Reserved and composed, even in excitement, I remain—serious and studious.



Yet, not knowing how to identify a waxwing earlier that day did not stop me from peering through the glass of the living room window at the Bohemian waxwings with wide-eyed fascination and delight.  If Grandma Marj had never pointed them out, I would have missed them.  The significance in this was not just that she told me the bird’s name, nor even the extravagant beauty of the bird.   Because a waxwing is just brown, with a black mask over its eyes and a crested head—like a cardinal but tan instead of red.  The significance was the way that she spoke to me.  It was the care, precision, interest and time that she took with me.  It was a relationship of appreciation between Grandma Marj, myself and the birds.  It could not be separated.

And so, it was with sweet memories that I put these art blocks together . . .

 

copyright 2011 Jodene (Jodi) Shaw.