Nesting season

by Jonathan Shipley

One of my daughters has graduated from college and has proudly moved into her first space—a little studio in Seattle. She’s proud of it. She sends me photos of how things are situated: lilacs in the bathroom, art on the walls, candles illuminating the spaces. She’s making herself at home in her first home, all her own.

My other daughter is about to graduate from high school. She wants to be a nurse and will be great at it: compassionate, kind, intelligent, dedicated. She’s leaving home soon for college in Milwaukee. She’ll pack up her things in boxes here—books and weird earrings, artwork, keepsakes from dear friends—and we’ll drive over to drop her and the boxes off at her first place outside our house. She’ll make herself a home in her first home, all her own.

I think about both of them taking flight as I walk Cherokee Marsh and delight in the return of the tree swallows. It's nesting season for them, too. The birds dip and glide across blue skies, chirp and chatter in the tree knots, and make ballets in the clouds, so many that there are clouds of swallows. An iridescence of joy. A presence of happiness. Of home.

Pairs of swallows have arrived at the nest boxes that are placed throughout the marsh lands. They sit atop them; swoop and swell around them; build nests within them. Yes, the swallows are back to claim the marsh home.

As I approach, they yell at me and hover above me for a moment before dive bombing. This is our home. Go away! They get rather aggressive and close to my tender head. Okay! Okay! I say, laughing, moving on, looking back as they perch again proudly on their nestings.

My bride and I will be empty nesters soon. Our children now proudly nesting on their own. They are fledglings in life. The sky is limitless for their hopes and dreams and desires. Their world is otherworldly to me and my wife.

We hope that we have helped our daughters see beyond us, to be better than we are: their minds, clearer and sharper; their skills brilliant and defined; their feelings more honest and earnest; their hearts creating a deeper resonance.

In ancient Greece, swallows were associated with Aphrodite and regarded as harbingers of good fortune. In maritime traditions, sailors got tattoos of swallows to symbolize a safe return to their homes.

The tree swallows are a flying pageant of homecoming at the marsh. My wife and I will be home alone now, delighted that the light of our children is now a brilliance in Seattle, in Milwaukee, a brilliance in the lives of all they know and are yet to know. The world, otherworldly, their lives, bright, blue, true.