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For the past couple of months, I’ve been watching a mourning dove build her home just outside my window.
First, the twigs.
One by one.
Carefully chosen, dropped, rearranged.
Then the searching.
She tested different places around the property.
AC units, electrical boxes, shrubs, little corners of the house.
Perch after perch.
Trying them on alone, and then for a few days, with her significant other.
I found myself watching her and thinking how she was modelling great principles of healthy dating.
That quiet discernment.
Not rushing.
Not forcing something to fit just because it’s there or the first spot she finds.
Eventually, she chose a small nook in the backyard, just above my bedroom window, on top of the electrical box for the internet.
Not perfect.
Not polished.
But right for her.
And then… she sat.
For two full weeks, she barely moved.
A kind of patience I don’t think I’ve witnessed much before.
Not passive.
Not waiting.
It was a special kind of devotion.
Holding onto and believing in something not yet visible.
Trusting what was forming with so much inner calm.
It reminded me how rarely we allow this in our own lives, in dating, in love, in becoming.
We try a perch.
We analyze it quickly.
We decide too fast.
We rush to impatience.
We lose faith.
But what if dating discernment looked more like this?
Trying different spaces.
Noticing how your body feels in each one.
Letting yourself leave what doesn’t quite fit, without making it mean failure. Without making up a whole bunch of stories, like becoming a victim of the overcrowded bush, the AC unit facing the noisy street, the sun exposed roof top chimney.
And what if when something does feel right, even with its imperfections, we stay long enough to see what wants to grow there.
What I’ve found is that sometimes what grows in those places, isn’t what we expected, planned on or eagerly waited to find. And sometimes that can be the best gift of all, often one we can’t see until we’ve flown a few more miles.
This past weekend, her babies hatched. Two beautiful new born morning doves. I felt like an aunt.
Tiny heads lifting.
Soft movements.
Drinking from her chest.
I felt something in me melt watching them. So much tenderness.
A kind of quiet joy.
And I have to admit, I worried about her choice.
The nest is small, not a lot of space for this growing family.
It’s a little flimsy, a handful of twigs and whatever she could gather.
Perched on an electrical box that honestly didn’t seem like the safest place.
Though I trusted her instinct .
And I did what any aunt would do and thought about how I could lend a hand. I found the hammock that had fallen (with me in it), the one the squirrels had chewed through, the one I had been frustrated and wrote a whole piece about weeks ago, in which I said i didn’t know what to do with the fallen hammock, and I hung it underneath her nest, attached it right below her, along with yard furniture pillows on the ground, should anybody take a tumble.
A soft net.
Just in case.
While I was standing there after I put the hammock up and arranged this bizarre scene from my life, I had this moment…
I never would have imagined that something that felt like a loss at the time, like my hammock crashing down, would become support for something new being born.
And isn’t that how life goes?
The relationships that didn’t last.
The plans that unraveled.
The homes we thought we were building that shifted or fell apart.
We don’t always see, in the moment, what they’re making space for.
But something is always being repurposed.
Rewoven.
Used in ways we couldn’t have planned.
Watching my morning dove neigbhor and her babies tucked just above my window, I thought…
We get to choose our perches.
We get to leave the ones that aren’t right.
We get to stay, too, when something feels true, long enough to let life unfold.
And we don’t have to grip so tightly to what we think each spot should become.
Because sometimes what’s being created is even more tender, more surprising,
and more alive than anything we could have imagined.
So tender and touching. Hosting doves, trusting in their innate choice, lending your blessing and back up support. The pictures show how peaceful they are.
Holy witness, you get to be. 🩵