Birds and Beethoven

. . . and babies.  She's still my baby

What is it with the chickadees?  Ten minutes after I refill the feeder they are all there.  It may have been weeks since I remembered or had time to fill it, but the very moment I do, word gets out and fast.  It is as if they have a secret scout going around checking.  She filled it, she filled it, she filled it!  Chickadee-dee-dee!!!

Special birds have a way of showing up at special times.  I think they are in cahoots with the Holy Spirit. They bring peace. The spring my dad was sick he was hunting wild turkeys in Iowa.  Wild turkeys showed up in our Minnesota back yard and stayed for several weeks. During that same time, one morning when I was in a panic, I picked up the phone to call home, Daddy answered and hearing his voice I thought--everything is still okay.  As we made pleasant conversation and my panic subsided I looked out the window and there was a blue bird on my feeder.  Not a squawking blue jay, an actual blue bird.  I've not seen one since, but he calmed me with his beauty.  On the Wednesday afternoon at 5:00 when my mom called to tell me Daddy died, I let my students go and went down to the kitchen and stood at the sink and looked out the window.  There in the clouds was a perfect wild turkey.  Cloud seeing is not my normal thing--but there it was--it's little gobbly thing hanging down and it's body and tail and legs and long neck.  Turkeys in heaven. Moments later the turkey was gone. You might be relieved to know I haven't seen anything in the clouds since.

Again, after my grandma passed away two eagles came and stayed in our backyard for several weeks.  Memory of Mama and Grandpa?  I thought so.

We often have hawks in the tallest cottonwood by the lake.  They are so proud to oversee the valley.  Sometimes one will have a show down with a group of black crows.  Why does one hawk versus many crows feel like the ultimate battle of good and evil in the universe?  It's okay, he always wins--the crows fly to some other cottonwood by some other lake.  Today's battle won.  The world is safe.  The chickadees are safe.

Beethoven is like that too.  The struggle for the survival of the human spirit placed humbly in a sonata movement.  Darkness versus light.  The brotherhood of mankind resides in a final symphony movement.  Why do I cry so easily while listening?  Perhaps it is because even deafness could not stop him.  That harmonic battle goes on and on--and enlightenment wins--mostly.

Another reason I love Beethoven--in grad school I had a German professor who pretty much turned graduate romantic history into a full semester course on Beethoven.  I can't remember his name, but I remember the red ink on my papers.  I remember spending three whole classes on the epic struggle in the first few measures of the piano sonata in d minor, Op. 31 No. 2.  Tragic.  And beautiful.

So February 2012 is Beethoven month.  Bill put the complete piano sonatas played by Richard Goode on my itunes and it's all Beethoven all the time.  Here's to the resilience of the human spirit.

My dad had a very keen sense of humor--he might wink and say, "that's Goode Beethoven."

Daddy--it's all Goode.  Happy turkey hunting.