Return of the Dark Eyed Junco

For those of you unfamiliar with this migratory bird. Here’s the dish:

A round dark-eyed bird with tan-to-brown chest---
Common Michigan winter resident
Adheres to a rigid social hierarchy. Rarely confused with any other bird.

Just when I’m ready to migrate my-hummingbird self- to the West, he returns. Maybe it’s because he knows I’m ready to fly to warmer, more secure climates, maybe it’s because the present landscape is incredibly barren with falling leaves, and leaving friends, that his field of vision isn’t so skewed.. so blocked. Maybe boredom? Maybe instinct? Either way, he’s returned, searching for seeds and yearning to plant his own (seed) that is.

And me? I know when the season changes, and the winds warm he will fly farther away. Fly to other feeders, other friends.
I don’t have expectations of this flighty flight, but I do have wishes. Wishes that maybe he would/we could reconcile some of our differences –he’s a ground feeder, I love nectar, or more directly that of culture and age and timing. The seven-year-apart-hindu-jew-ready-to-root-ready-to-party schism.

He agreed that ‘it was just sad’. knowing that we may be birds of a feather, knowing that there is connection and comfort, & knowing it’s not enough. And I wish..wish that maybe it would be enough this time, to fill a page or a chapter more in my life. Wish that we could try and build and nest.. Wish that I didn’t recognize that the ease between these unlikely birds was indeed as rare as a blue heron, the pine grosbeak, or a yellow warbler taking flight in my backyard..

He thinks I will fly West soon and he doesn't seem to be bothered by this impending flight. Does he know he’ll miss this frenetic friend, that I may not be back? Maybe this last fit of flight between he and I is because I’m trying to fly elsewhere. It’s amazing what is possible when there something appears to be ending, to be final. The freedom to feel. And that of course, is the paradox. Little expectations inspires a fearlessness, and a freedom which in turn creates more powerful feelings.

Either way.. the return of the Dark Eyed Junco has not swayed my efforts to migrate someplace west… someplace where I’m not waiting for the ground to harden, the days to darken, and love.. to return.