Help Comes In All Shapes

   This past year has been a rough one in so many ways...not just for me but for people everywhere.  While others faced a world-wide pandemic, I faced more personal storms in the way of illness and, well, storms.  Generally, the year 2020 has officially been marked down as a pretty rotten year for most folks.  Still, we have to look at things in a different perspective if we ever wish to get past our troubles.  I, for one, refuse to let things linger long. 

  All along the top edge of one section of the garden fence, there are dozens of cormorant feathers tucked safely in between the wire and railing.  Why?  Well, it all started as a way of coping with the massive cleanup after Hurricane Zeta.  I had found a long, black feather in the debris.  Not thinking much about it since surely a few feathers were lost during the storm, I stuck that feather into the crevice of the bark of a pine tree.  I promptly forgot about the feather until I found another.  That, too, was stuck in the tree bark.  Then another...and another.  About this time, Son was becoming a bit confused and questioned my actions.  Flippantly, I replied that I was saving the feathers in case I came across the whole bird.  "The bird will need its feathers once I find it!"  It had already become clear that the bird had not survived.  As I worked, I kept poking feathers along the tree trunk. It was Son who first stuck one in the garden fence and I soon followed suit.  Thus, our feathered fence became a thing.

 After a few days, finding and collecting the feathers sort of blocked out the reality of the devastation around us.  We could focus our attention on retrieving the feathers and not the huge piles of debris.  Silly?  Probably to most folks but to us, it was simply an act to relieve stress.  (It still saddens me that the bird perished during the storm.)  Now, the top of the fence proudly wears the feathered crown and I am reminded to not let stress get to me.  I assume that the feathers will stay as long as Mother Nature allows them to do so.  The wind and rain have split and curled the feathers into curious shapes so that now they are more of a point of interest in the yard...a point of interest that saved a bit of my sanity.