Just in time, a flock of robins swoops in and saves the day
By Cindy Stauffer
Updated Feb 19, 2007 15:52
Cindy Btfsplk.
Cynthia Sue Btfsplk, formally.
Cindy Sue B. for short, maybe.
Joe Btfsplk was a character in the old comic strip “Li’l Abner.” He walked around with a dark cloud over his head, a hole in his shoe and a never-ending string of bad luck.
I could be his little sister.
Last week, two of my three kids came down with the barfitis that is going around.
I was up all night with one, holding hair out of the way and squirting disinfectant cleaner everywhere before going downstairs in the gray dawn to make strawberry Jell-O, the sick food of choice in our household.
I stood up and left work right in the middle of a story, on deadline, for the other.
“Mom,” she told me when we got home, her breath all stinky, “you might have to wash my shoes.”
I had an interview and a meeting to juggle later that day.
In the meantime, another family member was laid up with a serious health problem.
Did I mention my husband was out of town?
My daily routine, held together by a pretty thin thread most days, now felt like it was in pieces.
OK, nobody was dying and my house hadn’t burned down. Many people struggle with much worse.
I know I should have just sucked it up. But round about Wednesday, I was feeling pretty darn sorry for myself.
Like Anton Chekhov once said, "Any idiot can face a crisis. It is this day-to-day living that wears you out."
As I was engaged in the glamorous task of dragging my trash can in from the curb late that afternoon, I burst into tears right in my driveway.
Then life handed me one of those strange little moments that are both ordinary and wondrous, one of those experiences that slyly remind you that while life is sometimes painful and discouraging, it also can be silly and amazing and full of promise.
Above my head, the branches of our holly tree started to shake and shimmy.
About this time of year, a flock of robins appears out of nowhere and lands in the branches of that tree.
For an hour or so, the fat birds hop around gorging on the red berries, stripping the branches bare.
There’s something comical and cheerful about this spectacle. It’s become a rite of spring for me but one that I actually have witnessed only a few times.
I had been waiting for the robins to appear this year, checking the holly tree for its berries every few days. I worried that the robins would come while I was away. Maybe they would not come at all.
And now they came when I needed them most.
Standing in my driveway with a trash can in one hand, I watched the birds bustling about the branches in their happy little banquet.
Well, then.
I went into the house to make Jell-O. Lime this time. To wash some shoes. To pick up some pieces.
Spring is here.
It’s about time.
And oh, just forget about Cindy Btfsplk.
Who could pronounce it anyway?
(The Voices column is written by a rotating team of New Era staffers. It appears Mondays.)
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