Looking Out my Backdoor - Gifts: A retrospective

This morning when I opened my eyes, I saw a bird sitting on the roof of the bodega outside my bedroom window — a beautiful yellow-headed, yellow-breasted, shrill-voiced gray bird with a long curved beak, the beak for, I imagine, digging bugs from bark. “Hello, Bird. Hoy es mi cumpleanos,” I told him in approximately adequate Espanol.

Today is my birthday. I want for nothing more than this peaceful day. Several hibiscus are gaudy with bloom. My five “dead” trees are in full leaf. The canna lilies are outdoing themselves. The trim on my casita is freshly painted a deep terra cotta, making my hom...