And the bird saga continues...

Today, as Asher and I were heading out to meet Michael for lunch, a blue jay screeched and screeched in the wisteria vines above me. My heart went out to it--I figured it was keening for the baby bird that had died yesterday.

I picked up Michael at his office and we drove over to the Barn on campus to grab a bite before heading to the UCR library so I could do more research for my upcoming talk. I pulled the stroller out of the trunk and was about to drop the diaper bag into the basket in back when I noticed something my brain couldn't quite compute. At first I thought it was Asher's toy bird that chirps when you squeeze it, but it looked too detailed, not plush enough. Then I wondered if somehow the dead baby bird from yesterday had fallen into the stroller by accident as Michael was trying to dispose of it. I looked closer, though, and saw that the little gray body was breathing. A live baby bird in the stroller. The stroller I had left outside overnight, which I rarely ever do; the stroller I had nonchalantly folded up and tossed in the trunk without a second thought. That poor blue jay in the wisteria, watching me birdnap her baby--no wonder she was screeching!

I felt such a rush of emotions...fear, confusion, guilt, awe, giddiness, the promise of a second chance, all racing through my veins at once. I told Michael I felt as if I was living in a myth. "Because there's a bird in the stroller?" he asked, amused at my penchant to turn every little thing into Story. But yes, finding a living bird inside a stroller, a stroller that had been folded up in the trunk, no less, felt magical, somehow--certainly a much different, more hopeful, narrative than finding a dead bird on the driveway.

I'm afraid I am too exhausted to continue the saga tonight--I will let you know what happened next soon...