Many Ways To Say It

Just outside my studio window, sitting on a ledge, is a robin’s nest. It has been there for several years. Prime real estate, under complete cover, high off the ground, comes fully furnished. A turn-key deal: all you have to add is eggs. I walked past the window a week ago and noticed some new nesting materials poking out, I leaned toward the window for a closer look and saw that the “new” materials looked suspiciously like straw and hay from our barns. It pleased me that it is making more than just our sheep and chickens comfortable. The new construction seemed to indicate a possible tenant for our little Air BNB.

Today I finished practicing and a flash of movement outside the window caught my eye. I looked up just in time to see our tenant swoop in and settle herself for a moment before beginning to pick at the straw, lifting individual strands into the air and depositing them in clearly strategic places. She was very busy feathering her nest before gathering herself and flying off again. As much fun as it is to watch tiny beaks point up out of the nest, incessantly chirping for food, I enjoyed this rare moment of watching preparation done with such care.

Spring. The season of love.

Someone very wise once told me that it is not what you say but what you do that is most important. Watching this mother made me think about the many ways there are to say I love and care about you without saying a word.

There are the grand gestures, Paul brought home a dozen roses for Valentine’s day this year. There is something wonderful about burying your nose in the fat opulence of twelve roses. Our four sons gave us the gift of a stay at the glorious Woodstock Inn for my birthday. We raised our glasses to them wrapped in the impeccable whiteness of hotel robes. These statements are easy to read, like a large sign held up with the word LOVE printed on it. But equal to these are the statements that perhaps you need reading glasses to decipher.

Parents driving their children to practice after practice. Enjoying the warm spring sunshine sitting on the bleachers, or… huddled under one umbrella in the cold driving spring rain only to come home and fix dinner, organize homework and wash the uniform, making it ready to do all over again at tomorrow’s practice.

People working from home, shut into their bedrooms or closets even, trying to be present for the presentation only to have their three-year-old walk in, naked from the waist down and announce (to the meeting) that she “went potty” and now needs to be wiped: those parents getting up from their meeting, taking their child’s hand and heading for the bathroom.

A phone call telling us our 275 bales of hay are ready to be picked up from the farm field…now! We dash into our truck, trailer attached, zoom over, load it as fast as we are able and race the storm clouds back to the barn, and finding friends standing there waiting to help unload before the skies open up.

The grocery bag taken from your hand and carried into the house.

An extra blanket wrapped around you on the couch as you stream movies.

Mushrooms on the pizza, he loves them, you hate them. They are on the pizza.

Bedtime in VT and it is freezing outside. You haul yourself out of your warm chair to take the dogs out one last time before sleep only to look out the window, through the falling snow, to see your beloved wrapped in your sweater and wearing your clogs walking the dogs.

As a musician, it has always been apparent to me that the spoken word is overrated. Things are difficult now for sure, but without question love is all around us: we just need to become better at seeing it in all of its beautiful, if mundane, forms.

I walked into the cello shop last week to greet my student and friend Dana, who was here to have her instrument worked on. We hugged, happy to see each other after months of virtual lessons. Shyly, she reached into her bag and pulled out a beautiful tie-dyed handkerchief. She explained that she had made it and felt that it “looked like me” and wanted me to have it. There was no reason other than love. It had its trial run wiping the tears from my eyes.

Melissa Perley