I was at the little blue house (the LBH, that’s what my siblings and I call my dads’ home) much of today. Some folks came by to pick up some claimed bookshelves. We hung out a bit, and then another friend came by. And then I did yet another round of clearing out some stuff and reorganizing the bits that are left to gift. (The book collection is awesome! Just ask Anita!) Closer and closer we/I get to the end of this process.
I was thinking earlier today of The Great Gifting and a particularly sweet experience I had that day.
I’d gotten up early the day of the party to go to the LBH because much cleaning and final party set up still needed happening. In particular, the floors hadn’t been swept or mopped since before the contractors moved from working outside to working inside, painting and patching and doing various projects.
As they finished up, I realized I had significantly underestimated the amount of work needed to transform the home from a work zone to a party-ready place.
And so it was, the morning of The Great Gifting, I had plans of cleaning the floors, going home for a shower around noon and coming back for the 2 pm party start time.
Around 11 a.m. that morning I realized I wasn’t going to get home to shower and that I’d actually be hosting people unshowered and dressed as I was, which was beyond perfect as I’d pretty much showed up at the LBH over the last two months wearing the exact same outfit: my LBH uniform of jeans with a layer of tights underneath, a long-sleeved shirt with a holy brownish sweater over that, a neck gaiter and a Norwegian-ish sweater … and a particular pair of shoes that I’d dedicated to the cleaning and the mess.
So, there I am, sweeping, mopping, cleaning.
I’d opened ALL the windows as far as I could when I first arrived at the house (and often did this when at the LBH). I needed to air the house out. At first this airing out was about opening the energy in the house and letting what was there, leave.
In recent week, opening the windows had also been about exchanging the paint- and chemical-cleaning scents for fresh air.
So, no big deal, right? The windows are open wide, as they have been each time I was at the LBH for almost two months.
I was mopping in one room when I suddenly felt a need to check on the kitchen, so to the kitchen I went.
TWO BIRDS were in the house and flying around in the kitchen. One flew out one of the windows when I walked in. The other, I knew, flew down the basement.
I went downstairs to the basement and saw the bird by the window. I opened the basement door fully so that it could leave, but it kept flying toward windows.
Feeling utterly confident that this bird would find its way out and back to its friend/buddy/partner, I lifted my arms in prayer, spun around in a whooshing way and whooshed it out the door with my heart-mind-body. And so it went, right out the door. Right then and there.
What made this experience so sweet is that as I was whooshing, my eyes lit on the image posted here. Two birds. These aren’t just “two birds;” they are the only two birds in a stencil that someone did on the wall long before some additional electrical work was done in the house. It wasn’t until we were several weeks in of sorting and cleaning and clearing things out of my dad’s home that the birds were found behind a shelving unit that eventually got moved.
To me, the whole experience with the birds that morning was concurrently minutely small, rather short in time, and yet profoundly significant.
When I saw the connection between the birds in the house and the birds on the wall, laughed and felt the magic of having my own angel in the heavens, my father. Then I went upstairs, kept mopping and shortly after, received the first guests at The Great Gifting, knowing and feeling that the house and the whole experience was blessed in ways that I could only begin to fathom.
