Come Walk with Me
@ ThankU.io 

My first pigeons were the fat, determined city pigeons Grandpa fed from a pocketful of peanuts in Golden Gate Park. The pigeons outside my window today are an entirely different crowd. Tall, elegant and beautifully dressed. At least until they all pile into the feeder together. I knew pigeons long before I knew juncos. My grandparents lived on Waller Street in San Francisco, and when we visited them in the 1950s, Grandpa would walk down through the Panhandle to the children's

Twenty-four years ago, when we first moved to the Santa Cruz Mountains, we put out some birdseed and waited. And waited. Finally, one little gray bird arrived. We didn't even know what he was. We named him Fat Freddy, pulled out our bird book and discovered our first mountain junco. When we moved to the mountain 24 years ago, we didn't know much about birds. Down in Silicon Valley, we knew the usual suspects: robins, scrub jays, chickadees and sparrows, with an occasional mou

My great-grandmother, both my grandmothers, and my mama rocked me in this chair. Later, I rocked my daughter and granddaughter in it. Now two treasured little toys keep each other company on the seat. This chair has been part of our family’s love for generations, and I’m grateful it is still here. There is a rocking chair in my house that reaches much farther back than I do. My great-grandmother Mimi rocked me in it when I was a brand-new baby. So did my grandma Ellen, my mam