Blue and Happy

It was the last gift my Granna ever gave me, this wooden box with an opening of specific diameter, galvanized roof on top and mounting holes on back. For thirteen years it had rested, hibernating on various shelves through six moves in two states, never fulfilling its purpose. October brought the positive mammogram and the biopsy and the surgery and suddenly everything needed to fulfill its purpose. So the bluebird house was dusted off (quite literally) and mounted east-facing above the blue bench and the blue hydrangea, to the oak in the corner of the memory garden.

It’s April now, and the week has been sprinkled with gypsy showers. It rains even now, slow and light, dripping from fiddleheads and dogwood. The petals flutter down to decorate the lawn. Robins run. Doves coo. Towhees “drink-your-teeeeeeeea”. The brown-headed cowbird sees me at the window and flies from the nest it was investigating.  And in the memory garden, crinum lilies stretch. Debbie’s irises bloom.

Inside, bedsheets churn in the washer. There will be no sunshine to hang them out in today, I think as I look out the window. A bluebird appears on the clothesline.

Oh! Oh! Such sweet, beautiful color, reminiscent of deep summer skies and plump berries and hydrangeas in gardens of both grandmothers. No wonder I surround myself with this hue, from the shutters on my little cottage to the paint on my car to the curtains and plates in my kitchen. Blue=happy. Even linguistically, I smile at its witty polyseny.

And over in the memory garden, success.  The nesting box has a tenant. Or two. This makes me doubly happy.

My heart sings. Zip-a-dee-do-dah, y’all.