stirrings

On Thursday I arrived in Vancouver, and now I'm on Bowen Island again.

Did I come back, or have I just gone away?

The chill in the air feels young and hostile, and my confused nose says it smells of Autumn. The Howe Sound wind that rocks the trees in the yard and clatters the windchimes has that howling turbulence that should be chasing dry leaves off the branches and pushing them up against the door. Even the ocean looks like October - harassed, whipped into pinched folds, the colour of temperatures that have just dropped. But in the quiet gaps between the gusts of wind, there is a sound that doesn't fit.
Songbirds. The single most heartening sound that I can name in this world!

In the Dominican, there were many beautiful bird calls - nameless birds with mysterious songs that I felt bereft to be leaving behind. But when I woke to the voices of chickadees and robins this morning, and realized that no tropical birdsong will ever rival the sounds of my tiny homeland friends... at least when measured by the depth of internal stirrings. These birds trigger feelings in me that touch a thousand memories of the relief of spring after winter. They remind me of things I can't remember, scenes without pictures, that are stored more in my body than my mind. How can it be, that a series of three familiar notes of inimitable tone can recall the sum of my life's happiest memories?

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