3/1/08 The Birdhouse

Someone stole my birdhouse.

I have a row of 7 birdhouses hanging on my fence in the backyard, and while I was out in the backyard enjoying the fabulous weather, and I noticed that my ladybug birdhouse was missing. We had some pretty strong storms this past week, so I figured that it just blew off the fence. (This birdhouse was really too big and too heavy to blow off the fence, but it was the only explanation I could think of). I looked all over the yard. I looked under the porch. I looked in the neighbor's yard in the off chance that it somehow flew backwards over the fence and into the neighboring yard. No birdhouse. At first I was just puzzled. I thought maybe I had put it in the garage and just forgotten, but there's no reason why I would have done that, and it wasn't in the garage anyway. I asked Tony if he'd seen it. I even called my mom to see if she had taken it and just forgotten to tell me. Anything to avoid the truth that someone had come into my yard, past my house, through the gate of my fenced-in yard, and taken my birdhouse off of the fence where it was hanging. Why would someone do that? Why would someone take what was obviously a favorite ornament out of someone's yard? In a backyard! A fenced backyard! It shocks me and flabbergasts me and...hurts me that someone would have so little regard for someone else's property. I feel like someone broke into my house.

I have to admit, I cried. Not for the birdhouse, although it was a Christmas gift from Tony's family, and one of my favorite ones. More because someone so callously invaded my sanctuary and took something with no regard to how I would feel. I spent time and energy and money finding just the perfect things to go in my yard. I enjoy sitting on the porch and looking at how everything goes together. Each little thing has a story behind it, and each thing means something to me. It breaks my heart.

I'm also hurt to think that the thief could be one of my neighbors. We've lived here for two and a half years, and I just can't image that one of my neighbors took something just because...I don't know why. I want to think that it's a stranger...some random roving birdhouse thief that doesn't live around me. But we live up a really steep hill on a private cul-de-sac on a dead-end road. No one comes up here without a reason. And no professional thief takes just a birdhouse. Tony tells me that it was probably a kid. Some kid whose Mom likes ladybugs, so he took it and gave it to her for her birthday or something. Some little kid who doesn't know that stealing is wrong and just wanted to make his Mom happy. I like that story better because at least that way it was taken for a reason, not just out of meanness or to hurt me.

I'm not sure what to do now. I purchased a statue for my flowerbed last week. It's called the Lady Joy, and I had been eyeing her for a while because she's not exactly cheap. But I really really liked her, and she's just perfect for what I had in mind, so I bought her as a present to myself. She's been in the living room for the past week while I finished the flowerbed where she's going to sit. Now the bed is finished, but I can't put her out there. What if the birdhouse thief decides he wants something else? One of my wind chimes, or the Lady Joy, or my gas grill? What's to stop this stranger from coming back and picking through my things like a smorgasbord of free trinkets? I could put all my stuff in the garage, but I didn't buy everything to sit in a pile in the garage...I bought it so that I could set it out and enjoy it.

Anyway. I guess in the scheme of things, a stolen birdhouse isn't all that much to get upset about, but it's going to take me a lot longer to get over the fact that my backyard isn't the safe sanctuary that I thought it was.

And along with my ladybug birdhouse, I've lost a lot of trust in my fellow man.