a memory sparked

Sometimes it's the smallest thing.

A familiar smell.  A song.  Or even a fleeting thought.  Odd things can remind us of people.

I am walking down my street.  It's one of those major crosstown streets heading both east and west.  It is as far as one can metaphorically get from Cape Cod.  And yet I look up and see the strangest thing.  There, among the traffic and noise and taxis and tall buildings, I see what looks like a little birdhouse hanging from a tree.

I use my camera to take a closer look.

It is a birdhouse.  

I immediately think of my dad. He died almost a year ago, at 90. While my father made his living in recycling, he had an artistic side.  He was the one who would always address formal letters.  He knew calligraphy, taught himself.  He created and painted wooden flowers, and clowns and other whimsical pieces of art.  But he was best known for his extraordinary birdhouses.

Not that my father  particularly liked birds, he didn't.  But for whatever reason, he took up the hobby of building birdhouses.  And they were magnificent.  It was a very lucky person who got one of George's birdhouses.  His later ones even included copper roofs.  

Today I see a bird house in a most unusual place.  On a major thoroughfare in Manhattan.  And I feel my dad's presence, as I make my way through another day in the big city.