Letter No. 6: What Remained

A few days ago, I noticed a bird’s nest lying on the ground beneath a tree. The truth is, I had noticed it before. But I hadn’t stopped to really look at it. It wasn’t until this morning that I found myself wondering where it came from and what story had brought it there.

The nest was remarkably intact. Nearby were two broken eggs. My first instinct was to look up. Surely there had to be a branch directly above it. There were dozens of branches, and I searched from one to another, expecting one of them to show me where the nest had once rested.

I stood there longer than I expected, looking from the nest to the tree and back again, trying to piece together a story I had never witnessed. A storm, perhaps? A squirrel? Another bird? Maybe the eggs had already hatched. Maybe they hadn’t. Every explanation seemed possible, but none of them seemed knowable.

What struck me wasn’t the mystery itself. It was how quickly my mind wanted to solve it. The nest never asked me to explain it. It simply rested there on the ground, bearing witness to something I hadn’t seen. I eventually walked away carrying the memory of the nest with me.

The next afternoon, I found myself beneath the same tree again. I hadn’t planned to stop.

I simply did.

What caught my eye was that the nest had been moved several feet. The broken eggs were gone.

Something continued after I left.

I looked into the branches again. They were just as silent as they had been the day before. Somehow, I had convinced myself that if I looked long enough, the answer might eventually appear. Instead, I stopped trying to explain what had happened and simply stood there looking at what remained.

Standing there the second day, I realized I had arrived too late to know the story, but not too late to begin telling myself one.

Perhaps that is one of the quieter ways we are formed—not only by what we know, but by the stories we build around what we don’t. Carry one of those stories long enough, and it can begin to feel like the truth.

I’ve been thinking about that little nest more than I expected. Not because I ever discovered how it reached the ground—I didn’t. By the time I stopped to look, the part of the story I most wanted to know had already happened.

What remained was enough to make me wonder, but not enough to make me certain.

Until next Sunday,

George

If this letter reminded you of someone, perhaps send it to them.