The Case for Caring Anyway

A quiet encounter with baby birds reminded me that little acts of love—toward dogs, birds, porches, or people—might actually matter.

As I sat on my porch in the afternoon heat, I wiggled my toes and watched the dirt below them dance around to a symphony that was just beyond my ear’s reach. In a moment of adulting excellence, I grabbed a broom to clear the layers of dirt from the porch. When I moved the small couch to sweep behind it, I noticed a mess of leaves in back of it. Curious, I put the broom down and slowly pulled the couch cushion away from the back frame to find four little eggs sitting inside a cavity within the mess of those leaves. I took in one of those audible sips of air that you do when you see something surprising like this. I slowly lifted the couch and moved it back into its former resting place – using the clean spots from where the legs had rested as my guide.

An Accidental Discovery (and an Immediate Spiral)

Christie took this photo today of the nest sandwiched between her porch railing and the outdoor couch.

I immediately went inside and turned to the all knowing internet to determine if I had just robbed these baby birds of a future – and therefore to determine the fate of my mood for the rest of the week. Some internet people told me that adult birds may abandon a nest if it’s disturbed at all, so I peered back out hoping to assure my brain that the couch was exactly where it used to be. With nothing else to be done there, I started researching incubation – as if more knowledge of adult bird behavior might somehow help this whole situation. With twenty minutes of research under my belt, I abandoned the internet for the next most useful thing I could think to do: worry.

Later that day when my husband, Ben, came upstairs for lunch, I greeted him with, “This is why I shouldn’t clean outside.” He looked at me with some degree of confusion, but because he knows me well, he simply waited in silence for me to go on. I explained the whole ordeal and told him that I couldn’t stop thinking about the birds. He told me he thought they would be okay, but my brain thought it would be wise to stay the course with worrying until there was evidence that all my worrying had been fruitful.

What Worry Built — A week of rule-making, porch-guarding, and emotional investment

And in case you’re somebody who thinks worrying isn’t productive, allow me to present you some of the fruits of my labor: a new house rule that all humans and canines should steer clear of the back porch so the bird parents felt safe to resume their incubating. I likely created eight more problems in our typical house flow with this rule, but I was optimizing for bird comfort.

The next morning, I woke up and immediately walked to the back porch door. I told Ben that I had this sinking feeling that I messed it all up. He walked out onto the porch, leaned over the railing, and paused. I held my breath.