Artsy Inspiration Wrought from Everyday Life

I found a little bird in a box of my oldest Christmas ornaments. Its feathers are sparser and more ragged than when I was a little girl and it perched low on my grandparents' or our tree every Christmas. I can't remember for sure, but I believe Grandma attached the bird to a bow (remember those sharp, plastic points that made bows never, ever fall off?) on a gift to me after I admired it each year when I was small, as I remember putting it on our tree the rest of my childhood, and then as a young wife and mother. It had a little horsehair nest, which has long since disappeared. I placed the bird on our tree this year, and seeing it there immediately brought back memories of being a little girl, laying mesmerized beneath a decorated ponderosa or cedar, staring up at the multi-colored lights, old glass bulbs and sparkling icicles. I can smell it. I can hear my mom playing guitar and singing “Little Toy Trains,” and I can feel the excitement and awe of being a kid at Christmas. [...]