This is a little running post I’ve been writing on the subject of…nests, people. 😉

A nest is to fill.

There is a little more in that nest today–it is a gathering up of what is sent to you on the wings of a strong wind and with pollen, with all forms of seed. It was sent your way. A little like the Keats’ story of Jenny’s Hat. Those birds just came down and laid upon her plain Jane hat all the garnish of fancy. Bows, vintage Valentines, paper swans.

Even the very chicks, a crown at the top, singing, “Make way.”

One of the fabulous pages from Ezra Jack Keat’s Jenny’s Hat story

This is some nest. This is the heart of a girl, of a mother, realised. All a family might need in the first six weeks.

And we all know, down deep, it is not the babes who need so much stuff. My gosh, even their food is chewed by us, first. We just need to feel there is some wealth. There is order and a sweet little shelf. The presence of wood, transcendent; the squeak of straw, age-old classics like a rocking chair, and those Russian matryoshka nesting dolls. (The five toys you might save from the proverbial fire). That old Velveteen Rabbit copy from when you were five. This show and tell from your own dissolved, scattered nest, to pass down, its weathered, loppy ears finally alive, useful.

And it’s really just the platform and the boundary between earth and sky, sidewalk and sun; the holding up of family, a signature crest up high, on beams. The numbers your friends will pen on their envelopes and packages, so that vellum announcements and paper airplanes can find you. A gathering. A quarry. A place to sing for meals and say, “sorry”. A refrigerator and a tool shelf. An alabaster knit sweater which will fit your entire family.  The swelling in the chest–it is a good fit.

What does your nest mean to you? What does it hold inside?