The Innisfree no. 7: The First Station

Our pilgrim began his life in exactly the fashion he would live it: by being obnoxiously late. He was supposed to be born sometime in the beginning of November, but instead he held on for an extra two weeks until he was evicted by way of Pitocin into this noisy place we call Earth. Perhaps he had strong feelings about being a Scorpio, but he made it to the Sagittarius side of things just under the wire. It's still to be seen whether this was a good thing or not.

He was born under a lucky sign; Michigan football defeated the dreaded Buckeyes earlier that day in a bitterly cold slugfest so common in late season Big Ten games. He was granted a family name by Father and a nickname by Mother, a dichotomy that would have a strange effect on his self-conception as he grew up. There were two of him, in a sense, out in the world and he got to choose which one he wanted to be. He settled quickly on the nickname and mostly used the family name for contracts and government paperwork. The system knew him by one name, but the world knew him by another.

His earliest memory of God was when he was about 2 years old. He was in the front yard of his family's smallish Queen Anne. The front yard was a humble strip of grass, split by a cement walkway that ran from the porch to the sidewalk. He stood in one of the patches of grass and he bent down to touch the grass. It was spring and the sounds of awakening were immense. He wore a thick coat and hat but his hands were free and he felt everything he could with his fingers. There were birds in the trees and they cackled and whistled all around him. Mother sat on the porch watching him explore his little world.

The phone rang inside, and Mother went inside to grab it, extending the cord to find a sightline to the front yard from inside.

Just then a robin swooped down from a nearby maple and alighted on the grass just a few feet from our pilgrim. He stared at the bird as it hopped and bobbed and hopped and bobbed looking for worms and bugs. It was the most incredible thing he'd ever seen. Birds up to that point had been faraway things, heard, sometimes seen, but remotely. He had assumed birds were creatures only of the sky, trees and shrubs the lowest they came. And yet here was one on the ground. It was incredible.

The robin hopped again and then it looked up and it looked right at him. He could see the clouds drifting across the bulb of its eyes.

"Welcome home, my friend," said the robin. "Take care. You have a lot to learn."

Our pilgrim was filled with a whole slosh of new emotions, but the one that rode the highest and was recognizable to him even at his young age was gratitude. It was the type of gratitude he felt when he was nestled in the nook of Mother's arms, feeling her heart beat thudding in his ear, her warmth. It was amber and honey and so very warm.

The robin started to hop away, and our pilgrim followed. He wanted to stay in this feeling of contentment and connection. Anything seemed possible. Birds were landing on the ground for goodness sake! The robin hopped ahead of him, always staying just a few feet away. Our pilgrim chased after the bird, starting to laugh. The bird wasn't flying away, it continued to hop down the sidewalk, several houses down. Our pilgrim followed.

Eventually, the robin had hopped to the end of their street where it met the highway. The bird stood on the corner. Cars rushed by in all directions, and our pilgrim could feel the wind from them pushing hard against him. He reached out to the bird. he had this certainty that if he could just touch the bird, if he could just hold it in his hands, everything would be right in the world.

In the distance he heard Mother's frantic voice, and like that the spell was broken. The robin flew away high into a maple tree. Our pilgrim stared for a moment at the spot where the robin had been. A car rushed by again, and he looked up startled, aware of the cars for the first time. Mother was closer, and then she was on him. He was pulled up and away from the street, and she was holding him close and she was crying. Her voice was terrified and angry all at once and the mixture scrambled up inside of him. He wasn't sure what to make of it.

"I thought you were going to be hit!" she kept saying over and over between the sobs.

By the time they made it home, anger had won out and Mother swatted our pilgrim on his behind as they shuffled back into the house, the day's outdoor excursion over. Our pilgrim cried, as much from the spanking as from the fearsome mixture of emotions coming from Mother. She wasn't just angry and scared, there was something else too. He recognized it immediately, though it would take decades before he understood it. It was gratitude. Mother was overflowing with gratitude, but of a form he didn't understand. It scared him a little, this gratitude.

When it was over, he watched Sesame Street, and he played with his Lincoln Logs while Mother stood for a long time in the kitchen. He looked out the front window into the yard occasionally, hoping to catch another glimpse of his robin. He didn't think much more about the spanking or Mother's tears, but for the rest of his life he would remember this day and the two forms of gratitude he saw. One born of life and witnessing the divine, the other made of much grimmer stuff, emerging out of the full awareness of death's looming presence over everything. One could be both thankful for life, and for the staying of death's blade, even if for one more moment.