Hopping Down the Bunny Trail
or Magic Hats, Robins and Mothers
As my brother told us this morning, “the first snowstorm of summer” arrived yesterday, covering everything in rapidly melting white. I’ve been thinking a lot about spring, and in Alberta, it’s not April showers that bring May flowers; it's April snow. April brings the mercurial weather, the first sightings of robins in my tree, and brave (or crazy) spring flowers trying to poke their heads out of the snow.
Robins. Four robins landed in my tree last weekend and sat around fluffing their feathers and chatting about whatever robins chat about. Hopefully, we will have a nest nearby. However, it is also a reminder that we need to clean out and screen the vent for the main floor bathroom that had a sparrow nest in it last summer. Nests are lovely in trees, but not so great in the ducts.
Spring is Calgary Comic Expo (this upcoming weekend!) and I am frantically pulling together my supplies, getting my printing printed, realizing that I need new business cards, and discovering that the Square reader isn’t squaring anymore. The panic is an annual thing. I always wait too long to get my act together, and yet somehow, I always manage to pull it off in the end. I think that is a skill you learn as a mom—how to pull the bunny out of the hat at the last moment.
I’ve also been thinking about my newly widowed mom, who didn’t start her garden seeds this year. It’s a small thing, but it ripples. Change does that, it spills into every corner of life. Joy can be dampened by grief. But grief also has a strange way of making joy shine brighter when it does break through.
Everyone tells me grief is like a wave. It rises and falls with no particular rhythm. Sometimes it catches you off guard, like robins in a snowstorm. Or a flower blooming when the ground still feels cold.
So I’m going to keep sketching, keep printing, keep chasing down a new Square reader. And maybe, if I’m lucky, I’ll get to watch a robin build her nest outside my window. Even if everything feels a bit wobbly right now, the season is shifting. The robins know. I’ll trust them.
~ Kathleen
p.s. if you are coming to Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo, stop by my booth (A269) and get drawn - badly)