Nesting habits of a writer in the wild

On finding the right place (page) to call home for a little while

Sometimes I collage or vision board the cover of a Moleskein blank book for my monthly journal.

A robin family made a nest under the roof of my back porch. I advised against it as I stood at the sink watching the construction unfold through the kitchen window.

“There’s a large gray cat with preternatural bird-catching skills who lives here,” I said, as if robins understood words.

“This is a bad idea for you. He goes in and out all day.” I drummed my nails on the glass to distract them.

I didn’t add that once this large gray cat dropped a full-grown Blue Jay on the welcome mat just below their new digs. Thankfully, it survived. Another time, I gaped as he leapt six feet from the floor and took a bat out of the air mid-flight with a single swipe of his paw. Most horrifying was the mouthful of baby birds he brought me in the middle of the night. They had fallen from a nest in the neighbor’s backyard.

I spoke to the robins in my heart, urging them to find another place to call home.

But they carried on dragging bits of straw in their beaks, and draping it on the porch rail. Each day they hauled spring riffraff from the yard onto the 2x4 ledge under the eave, placed it in the corner, and marched around on it. Sometimes I noticed there was nothing there. Perhaps they gave up and looked for a better spot elsewhere. I hoped they got my psychic message and moved on. But the next time it rained, the robins worked all day. The nest rose up around them like it was a pre-built model.

“Do you think they waited for it to rain,” my kid asked.

“Maybe the wetness helps everything stick together,” I wondered.

The large gray cat yowled at the back door to be let out.

“You’re in,” I told him. “Until the robin family moves out.”

I don’t know why these birds picked our porch for their nest. But I do understand the process of finding just the right place to brood.

Over the years, I’ve chosen various homes for my writing. There were the early years when I first started keeping a diary swaddled in cloth-covered books. High school was a spiral-bound era. Romantic considerations and adolescent opinions filled the pages where lecture notes should be. I went through a hardcover phase in young adulthood. All those missing years are marked within these solid walls. Young motherhood was a start-and-stop epoch, a series of thoughts that trailed off in books of various types, months between entries.

Some journals across the eras.

I’ve never been a fan of the loose-leaf three-ring binder variety of journal. Since this writing practice is all that held me together, I needed binding along the spine in wire, thread, or glue.

I started including the riffraff of my life in 2017. Now a writing nest is not just made of words. Musings might be illuminated by graduation programs, photos, newspaper clippings, tea tag wisdom, cookie fortunes, ticket stubs, and quotes. I draw some, but these are more pictographs than pictures. If this sounds like a good old-fashioned scrapbook, it probably is. Except no one else can read it.

Lately, I go back and forth between blank soft-covered Moleskeins and college-ruled spiral-bound Decomposition books.

Sometimes I want wide open spaces so my mind can wander off leash. Other times I need the safety of lines.

Unlike the robins, I am mindful of the dangers of putting my personal eggs in an obvious basket. Yet I know some of my journals, especially the ones with covers I collage or tape a card to, just seem to say, “Read Me.”

A tempting read?

I don’t want to invite prying eyes into my private thoughts anymore than the robins want the paw of a large gray cat rifling through their hatchlings.

So, like the birds, I stay close to my nest. I always know where it is, how near or far away I am from it, and who I can trust to mind their own business while I go about mine.

The robins and I may not be birds of a feather. But as nests go, the building is much the same.

I will have a lot more time to spend with A Reading from the Journal of Yesterday this summer, and I am thinking about some subscriber perks. I want my writing to be available to anyone who wants to read it. But I would also love to support others in the review of their old journals. That’s definitely an opt-in sort of thing that people may want to keep private. I have all sorts of ideas about how to do this, including monthly Zoom meets, “harvesting” prompts, illuminated journaling, how to show up for past selves, and more. I would love to have your feedback about what might be useful/fun/inspiring for $8 a month. I look forward to hearing from you!