I had to move this phoebe nest this week. If you look closely you will see as I did, that the interior is delicately woven with my recently cut hair. With everything happening in our current world you might be thinking “who the hell cares” or “why does this matter.” If so, I can relate. I want to steer my thoughts away from it and further churn through the emotional complexity of this moment and the circumstance that led us to this place. But on the periphery of all this fear and anger and pain I am feeling right now, I cannot be anything less than in awe of this sight.
I am the adoptive father to a bi-racial daughter. If you could watch me type those words you would likely be shaken by the sight of me sitting here as tears well in a grown man’s eyes. I am incredibly grateful for that, for her, and for her black birth-father and his whole family and the ancestral and cultural inheritance they have passed on to her and thus to us. I carry them with me everyday, everyday I feel them in my heart, and everyday I am overwhelmed with love and loss for a family that offered our daughter to us. I have felt the weight of them there in a different way these past few days. Her birth-father might never have the platform to communicate to this many people in the way I am communicating to you now. The odds have been stacked in my favor because of the color of my skin; and he, as a black man in the United States, has had the odds systematically and knowingly stacked against him. This is a truth I must live with, but we must change. Our daughter will not be shielded from racism and hate because of my whiteness, she will not be handed all the privileges my white son will be given (both because of his race and his gender). Our whiteness and our blackness are arbitrary titles, false narratives given to isolate power to a selected few and inherited generation after generation. But because of their telling, we must deal with the reality they have created. And here we are; we are woven together like my hair in this nest.
I have not purged myself or my lineage of the racism that I inherited by my birth, from my education, from my ancestors, and from this land. I have not fully acknowledged or learned to forgive the fact that the home I build for my family is on land that was forcibly taken from people who loved it and buried their dead within it, and was then re-inhabited by people who were forcibly ripped from their homeland and planted here to work as slaves. These are the shoals of the river that lives inside me and are barely worn as day - after day - after day I acknowledge these truths and the grotesque and inhumane prejudices I carry. I can see the angelic and Christ-like nature in my children’s eyes without any hesitation, but to see that same Love in the birth-father of my daughter I would first need to sift through the judgements, fears, and the prejudices I have inherited and been taught. I am the owner of this truth. But, here I can cut my hair and it is picked up and deemed fitting for the care and protection of baby birds in a nest. Can you see a grown man weeping before you now?
I am a worthy father to both my bi-racial daughter and to my white son. I am a worthy stone here on this riverbed. I have a place because a place has me. I will continue to learn to forgive and learn to remember in that forgiveness. I will not be afraid to stand along my family that has been marked with the name of Blackness; and with the resonant pride of a father, a brother, a son, I will make it clear that the lives of my Black family matter. Black Lives Matter.
One day I will put this body down on the ground like the hair that my son cut from my head this week. And when I do I will be certain that it stood for a reason, it stood for Love and for Justice and it will be worth the making of a nest upon its falling. You could see me now in my tears and my brokenness and you could also see me as the Man I am meant to be. You could see that my hair is a small but integral part of this nest.
My father taught me that “a real man is a man that knows how to say ‘I am sorry’” . I am sorry. I am sorry to my black and brown brothers and sisters for the disparities you have been dealt, by my hands, the hands of my kin, and the systems of hate we have propped up for generations. This is not the nest we were called to weave. I am sorry to the birth-father of my daughter, the giver of birth to my daughter, I am sorry my role as a father was offered with such massive and numerous advantages over you. I cannot remove that truth, but I can acknowledge it and humbly honor the role I have been given and do everything in my power to create equality.
My mother and father also taught me what “sorry” actually means. It is hollow when it is not accompanied by wisdom, compassion, and action. So here I am being vulnerable, speaking to something that is difficult and intimidating to me. I will offer back the gift of fatherhood that has been given. I will resonate out through the hollow and infinite chamber that is my soul, Black Lives are Worthy, this is my family, this is my Heart. We have gone on far too long carrying this hate and pain; it is time to sit it down and build a proper nest.
I want to make it clear that although I might not identify with all the labels our society gives me, I wear the labels of a White, Christian, Cisgender, and Straight man living in the United States. This has a monumental effect on my experience here in this life. I have no choice but to share these words from that place and that identity is important to acknowledge, because this is a conversation. In conversation it helps to know where we are coming from, to better imagine we can go together. It is a work in progress, just like me. I need help in this, and I feel raw and vulnerable in communicating it. I want to continue learning and growing and there is ample room in my Being for both those.
Above is another nest we found this week by the river, it is a red-eyed vireo nest. It is made of woven bark held together by cobwebs and lined with grass and pinestraw. I hope you can see the poetry in its symbolism and its existence.
Below is a picture of a baby starling we rescued that had fallen out of its nest and could not be returned. We built a nest for him to the best of our abilities and are doing the best to care for him as his adoptive family as well.
