By Rachel Hudson
It was midnight when my aunt and I stepped off the plane and into Texas… my original homeland. It had been three long years since I’d visited the state, and even longer since I’d been able to see most of my family. Much had changed in my absence, as my aunt explained on our way to her house. The city I had spent so many childhood summers in had grown immensely and was no longer the quaint, quiet tourist town of my past. It was now one of the fastest-growing cities in the entire United States, with a current population of well over 100,000 people and rapidly rising. The fields of wildflowers where, as a little girl, I had watched Greater Roadrunners trot and Northern Cardinals sing had been replaced by masses of houses to accommodate the population explosion. I could barely recognize anything as we drove under the dense city lights, and I remained clueless up until we pulled into my aunt’s driveway.
I tried my best to ignore my feelings of unease and dismay at the spiraling state of this beloved town and instead focused on relishing the sensation of terra firma at a scant 630 feet above sea level. I had suffered many tremendous nosebleeds en route here, one of which was comically frustrating, as my nose started bleeding heavily while I was using the restroom at one of the airports… and the toilet’s automatic sensor was very much broken, constantly spraying me with flushing water as I sat in misery, trying to quell the bleeding with wad after wad of toilet paper. I fretted about pressure changes in the airplanes causing more bleeds, so I stuffed my pockets with tissues and awaited the inevitable. The flights did indeed cause more minor bleeds, as well as extreme nausea, and by the time we landed in Texas, I was more than ready to just be done with everything. Luckily, my condition rapidly improved once I was back to my “normal” elevation and far removed from the seas of pollen and dust.
As I stepped in the door at my aunt’s old house, the memories of decades past slowly wafted through the air and into my mind, emitted from a random assortment of objects… a door handle, a side table, a countertop, the bathtub. How long has it been…? Fifteen years? Twenty? I wasn’t sure. The distantly familiar setting that surrounded me also had delicate, twisting tendrils of sadness… many of my family members had passed away since I had last entered this house, one of whom, my grandmother, had died just a few months before this trip. I noticed a drawing that I had made in honor of my recently late uncle, framed and prominently displayed. His death had necessitated my aunt’s move back into her old home, which I remembered from my childhood so vividly. As I looked around the house at one o’clock in the morning, the smallest things would dimly glitter with familiarity, and it was now that the familiar began to show me its true depths. There was more to it than simply that which I knew well… much more.
I meandered into my cousin’s old bedroom, now the guest room, where the roots of familiarity ran deep. I’d spent so many days, weeks even, in this room with my cousin, where we played dress-up and video games, and hid from the grown-ups. As I reclined in the bed, my exhausted mind felt a bit heavy, but also quite at home.
The following morning, my dad arrived after spending the previous day driving down, and I re-packed my things to move into a hotel to spend the week together with him. We had much to talk about and much to see and do while we were together once again, after so long apart. First on the agenda was a birding trip to the Gulf Coast, always a treat during spring migration. As we made the trek down the long, open roads early in the morning, the familiar and its sadness brushed my senses again; the last time I was here was the last time I had gone birding with my uncle, who had developed a fire for photography and birding later in his life and had quickly become my bird-talk buddy. We’d swapped stories and photos and shared eBird lists so often… and here I was, on his home turf, in the land which first inspired his passions… without him.
It had been three years since I’d been there, but I remembered it all like I’d only been away for a few weeks, and its familiarity was a comfort to me through the pain. I confidently walked the trails, knowing exactly where I wanted to be and where I needed to be looking. Magnolia Warblers, Black-and-White Warblers, Northern Parulas, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, and Summer Tanagers coated the small trees, and this time, the birds’ familiarity did not stem from my time living in Washington. No… this time, these birds were all ones I had seen before, but many years ago, many of them here at the very spot on which I stood. There was a different nuance at play here—the ties of the familiar were nearing their completion. Weaving the threads of my life through the skies with every beat of their wings, I could see how powerful the familiar was to me. Memories and highlights of my life, some of which had been buried by time, were resurfacing as each bird flitted by, as the leaves on each small tree quivered in the breeze, as each footstep echoed along the boardwalk….
We spent the entire day at the coast, birding at many places (some more than once in the day), and I even met one of my life’s goals: getting a good photograph of a Roseate Spoonbill, which is one of my most favorite birds in the world. I was so happy, then, that the clouds of vicious mosquitoes had chased me away from the main trail in that area and out to the shore instead, otherwise, I would never have gotten that picture, nor would I have gotten my Lifer Least Terns which danced back and forth high over the waves. Later in the week, my dad and I went to a famous cave system, Natural Bridge Caverns, which I had visited several times as a kid with the rest of my family in tow. I could remember so much from the caverns, even though my last visit had been long before anyone in my family owned digital cameras or cell phones. As we hiked along with the tour group through the stunning tunnels, memories quietly resurfaced yet again as I beheld the familiar sights. We spent most of the day there, taking in every possible aspect of the wonderful area. We made many fun new memories, which blended beautifully with the old ones, a glorious tapestry of good times.
During dinner one night, as we sat in the outdoor concert area of a bustling restaurant with live music, enjoying German food for the first time, my ears picked up something else familiar through all the clamor. I could hardly believe it… surely not! But as I put my meal on hold to peek up at the small sliver of evening sky visible from our table, I saw that I was right… I’d managed to hear a Swift. In Washington, I’d been working with Vaux’s Swifts for many years during their migrations, and I knew their calls very well. In Texas, these would instead be Chimney Swifts that I was hearing, and I saw several of them looping around the tops of buildings next to the restaurant before heading to roost. That night, I also saw my first Lesser Nighthawks as they left their roosts on the rooftops—just different enough from our Common Nighthawks for me to take notice. I thought back to Scotland (oh, how many lifetimes ago that felt!), and recognized the “Texas- equivalents” here as I had overseas. I just couldn’t escape these familiar things….
Finally, on the last night of my Grandest Adventure, I had dinner at my late grandmother’s house with all my remaining family members in this town… all three of them, plus myself and my dad. The grand family dinners with long tables and huge banquets were no more. In fact, everyone who had lived in this house the last time I’d set foot in it had since passed away, and my remaining uncles had taken it in and made it their home now. Through all the catching-up chats and toasts to those no longer with us, I thought back on everything I’d experienced here… playing in the treehouse out back, trying to catch the geckos on the walls, watching the scared doves (White-winged, Inca, and Mourning) seeking refuge here during hunting season, the Greater Roadrunners stalking prey in the yard, the Blue-gray Gnatcatchers dangling in the trees, and the ever-present Northern Cardinals enjoying the bird feeders and baths. I also thought about my time with my family and all the lovely, happy things we’d done together here.
At the airport the following morning, I sat alone by a window… and began to cry. So much had happened to me in the past month, and my emotions weren’t sure where they should go. A red, heart-shaped helium balloon drifted past, out of reach as it floated high along the ceiling. I wiped my tears, reminded by the balloon that I was loved, and that I was okay. Even the balloon held a deep familiarity to me, as it reminded me of a pink heart-shaped helium balloon I’d let roam free in my home for the past half year.
Hours later, my final flight of the ten I’d been on during this adventure shifted in the sky, and I just knew that we were close to home. I dared to peek out my window, shuttered this whole time due to the bright, direct sunlight, and I was greeted by the most familiar sight of all to us here in the Pacific Northwest: the black hills of dense, tall evergreens. Majestic, proud, and welcoming; all my troubles on this last accursed flight immediately faded away as I threw open the shutter and gazed down below me, transfixed and overjoyed by the sight. Low mists drifted between the shadowy hills and trees, dark clouds painted the sky above us, and a long river marched along its path in the lowlands. Home….
The enchantment of the familiar had completed its journey through my mind. I could see so clearly now why so many familiar things had such a powerful hold on me. The familiar was enchanting to me because it was an extension of my own life, my personality, my experiences, my dreams, and memories. It also held the lives of those I’d lost, as well as those who remain. I was inextricably tied to these small, seemingly insignificant things, as they each told a story that shaped who I was in body and soul. From the Eurasian Wrens singing in Scotland to the vibrant Townsend’s Warbler posing in Arizona, to the regal Roseate Spoonbills soaring in Texas, so many birds held some precious piece of me. My surroundings spoke to me of who I was, found in the climate of Scotland, the flowers of Arizona, and the presence of my family in Texas. The places, as well, gently cradled parts of my soul: the glorious natural sculptures in the caverns, the trails on the Gulf Coast, and the houses in which I’d spent so many summer vacations. These things which were familiar to me in such a myriad of ways and represented countless elements of myself were all so treasured, so soothing, so magnificent… and, of course, so enchanting.
Photo credit: All photos taken by Rachel Hudson. Birds, left to right by row: Summer Tanager, Northern Cardinal, Northern Parula, Roseate Spoonbill, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Magnolia Warbler, and Chimney Swift. Scenery: Mist rising through the black hills along the Columbia River Gorge.