A Bird In the Hand

From earliest childhood I've been aware of the saying, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." As a little girl I thought it would be very cozy to have a bird in my hand, but even if I'd found one I wouldn't have dared to pick it up. My parents cautioned me that outdoor birds had "lice". Of course, looking back I see that any bird I could've caught would probably have worse problems than lice, but that was a good way for them to keep me from picking up birds. So it was just as well.

The meaning behind the saying is a good one, and one I've lived by (without thinking much about it) all my life. Appreciate what you have. Don't make yourself miserable longing for something else -- at least, not until you've done everything you can to make the most of the current situation. (And then don't just long for it, do something about it.) It's a theme that occurs frequently in pop culture: "Bloom where you're planted." "Love the one you're with." "Oh Auntie Em, I learned that when you go looking for your heart's desire, you shouldn't look any farther than your own back yard, because if it isn't there, then you never really lost it in the first place." Okay, that last one doesn't entirely make sense, but I've always liked it anyway because I've frequently found myself in Dorothy's situation: I've had the ruby slippers all along.

When I was in my teens I had some pet birds (parakeets), and I enjoyed having them in my hand. I learned at that time that a bird in the hand usually leads to bird poop in the hand, but that's just another life lesson -- about taking the bad with the good. (Or as my mother used to say, "Nothing's perfect; everything's got lumps in it.") With the bird's little claws gripping my finger I'd lightly stroke its warm, feathered back. Sometimes I'd even murmur to it, "You're worth two in the bush, you know that?"

I've even got an artist's conception of a bird in the hand:



Mom used to love going to craft sales, and back in the 1970s she found this plate, made by a local artist, which she thought "looked like me". I've kept it in my bedroom ever since then.