As Summer and I took our Tuesday morning constitutional, I heard a familiar but unexpected chattering tweet from above. Sure enough, it was a red-winged blackbird perched on a power line calling down to me. I’m used to that blackbird song being an harbinger of spring, not October chill.
‘What are you still doing here, buddy?” I called back. “Did your friends fly south without you? Are you an elderly beast who decided to live out your last days here in God’s country? Or have I misunderstood your lifestyle all along, and you and your friends are always around and I never noticed before?”
Whatever the case, it was comforting to have a reminder of springtime as we begin the annual slog toward winter.
“Spring waits at the end of this road,” God and the blackbird promise. “Just hang in there for a while.”
