It All Began With a Child Size Pair of Binoculars

Today's story is about three things: a secret, something I have never seen before, and the power of story -- a story that began with a child-size pair of binoculars.

Let's start out with the secret. Are you ready?

Yes, we bought our oldest grandson a pair of binoculars for his 7th birthday party on Saturday. Shhhh! You're won't tell him, right?

His backyard fence is right next to a desert wash, and they get many birds in their yard: quail, cardinals, finches and doves, to name a few. He asked for binoculars so he can see the birds from the back door, the shy ones that hide out in the branches. Our grandson is in a nonfiction phase where he wants to know about numbers, figures, names of things, and how they work.

How do you make a kaleidoscope? Why do volcanoes explode? What do you call that bug? That bird? 

I tested out the binoculars in my yard to make sure they were as awesome as advertised. Child-size should not mean lame.

Finches, white-winged doves, sparrows, and Inca doves enjoyed breakfast at my three feeders. I noticed a brownish-gray bird with a black mask scratching for seeds under the orange tree.

A female cardinal?

I focused the binoculars. Nope. No tufted or crested head.

An Abert's Towhee. The first I have ever seen.

The bird is named after James William Abert (1820 - 1897), an explorer, bird collector, and topographical artist who first documented the bird. The towhee is often shy and likes to remain hidden, but the extrovert at my feeder didn't get the memo, as it held its own with the twittering finches and sparrows.

To be clear, an Abert Towhee is not an unusual discovery. They are all around Arizona in flatlands with a permanent water source.

They are everywhere, but I have never seen one.

Sometimes we cannot see what is right in front of us.

Last year I visited a birding group at the Desert Botanical Gardens. I learned that serious birders have a thing called a Life List, a list of all the bird species they've identified with absolute certainty (no cheating!) during their whole lifetime of birding.

"That's a lifer for me," a birder might whisper when spotting a feathered friend for the first time and other birders will silently applaud so as not to scare this important first-timer.

So let me remind you.

I SAW AN ABERT'S TOWHEE FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME.

Eating seeds under MY orange tree in MY backyard.

A lifer.

My eyes are now wide open.

Later that day I identified another Abert Towhee. Now that my eyes are open, I SEE them.

This week, I also taught a writing workshop at the Cancer Support Community.

One woman in the class compared cancer to a hotel with a very long hallway, filled with many doors she had to open. Another compared cancer to a tornado.  With additional questions and writing prompts, she detailed a childhood memory of a tornado warning when she waited in her cobweb-filled basement.

The memory was in her brain, but she had not accessed it for decades. Through writing, she was able to unlock images and memories she had not seen and tie it into her present reality with cancer.

The door to that memory swung wide open, allowing her to see and bring clarity to her story.

Writing our stories is powerful and healing. I love helping people discover their story in new ways, with details they have never seen before.

If you are one of those people who has been touched by cancer or another serious illness, I would love to have you join a test group for a workshop rolling out on September 9 entitled, Reclaim Your Scattered Story: A 6-Week Online Writing Workshop for Those Touched by Cancer and Serious Illness.

All the information is on my website at www.lynnehartke.com. The link is open for registration (fingers crossed).  Look for the code to take the course for free as part of the test group. That code will expire on Sept 8. As part of the test group, you will need to purchase a copy of Under a Desert Sky: Redefining Hope, Beauty, and Faith in the Hardest Places for the reading assignments.

For all of you listening and reading today, I pray you will have eyes wide open to all that is beautiful and good, and when you witness what is difficult, you will step forward and not backward in a hurting world.

In the meantime, I can't wait to give my grandson his binoculars!

Feel free to share this story and I look forward to hanging out with you again.

To learn more and to register: https://lynnehartke.com/register/workshop-membership/.

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ABOUT LYNNE HARTKEI share stories of courage, beauty, and belonging--belonging to family, to community, and to a loving God.  I am author of Under a Desert Sky: Redefining Hope, Beauty, and Faith in the Hardest Places.I help cancer survivors capture their valuable stories at writing workshops each month at Ironwood Cancer and Research Center in Chandler, AZ and at Cancer Support Community Arizona  in Phoenix. If cancer has touched your life, check out a free printable: Dear Friend Who Was Diagnosed with Cancer, and a tutorial on creating courage flowers, with a download of courage paper.