Can a human build a bird’s nest as well as a bird? Yes or no. This became the hypothesis for my third-grade science fair project.

***

By the time I turned 25 I had moved 34 times. I was not a military kid, nor a part of some travelling circus. I wasn’t the child of a famous musician, racing around the country from city to city with crowds of raving fans. I was the product of irresponsible parents who didn’t know how to plan for the future, who possibly lived above the poverty line but spent hard-earned money on beer and cigarettes and good times, rather than food and clothing.

That revelation might be shocking to some, but it’s boring to me – the pickup and move because my dad lost his job, yet again, or the rent was just too steep to maintain. I know what it’s like to live in a small motel room – once as a child and twice as a teenager – when the rental reprieve came because my parents also worked the front desk checking in seasonal workers and holidayers. I’ve lived in apartments with little to no furniture. But there were also townhouses, century homes, more modern dwellings, all a status symbol for any teenager.

***

I’d been standing under a crabapple tree by house number eight—literally on the other side of the tracks, where trains rumbled by at regular intervals, their horns blaring as they approached the crossing—plucking the sour fruit from the branches, biting them in half and spitting them out when the bitterness became too much. I spotted the bird’s nest tucked into the armpit where branch met trunk. It was close enough to reach if I didn’t mind the branches scraping at my skin, nipping at my hair. I reached up for it and pulled it down. The nest was empty. Abandoned. No sign that anything had ever lived there. I studied the structure, the mud and twigs and grass and twine, all pressed together. Firm. Solid. To survive long after the inhabitants had moved on.

***

There was always some kind of music rippling around my house, whether it was a record, tape or CD – anything from Black Sabbath to The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – my dad plucking on his guitar or knocking out a beat on his drums. Along with excessive amounts of music came excessive amounts of people through the house and with that came excessive amounts of alcohol.

My dad was rowdy, and loud. When you were in a room with him, you knew you were about to have a good time, with his baked-in sense of humour, equal parts dark, insulting, and delightful. He made a point of including everyone and they loved him back. Even later when I was a teenager, he was the dad everyone else wished they had. The fun dad, not strict, no discipline, trusting, the do-as-you-wish-just-don’t-get-arrested kind of guy. 

***

I studied the nest, making efforts not to destroy it because I needed the control—the real-life specimen being recreated. I mixed dirt with water, shaped my own nest with grass and twigs I’d gathered from around the yard and down by the slough, picking up anything that could possibly work to make the best bird’s nest any human had ever built.

The mud got under my nails, dried onto my hands, making my fingers stiff in the creases, but I didn’t stop. The spoon and knife out, smearing mud in all the places and then leaving it to dry and harden in the sun.

The first attempts failed. When the mud became too dry and cracked, the remnants hanging by nothing more than some tufts of grass, I’d start again. More grass, more twigs, less dirt. But then there was no substance. Start again. The base, the sides, creating a structure that could support the weight of the dirt being packed around it.

***

My dad was a songwriter and musician and not a bad one. Notebooks full of songs and chords lay stacked on coffee tables, end tables, a pen never far away. He scratched lyrics on napkins and scraps of paper when necessary, all eventually making it into the book. Once I suggested he record and send out demos of his songs. He scoffed, “no one wants to hear from me”, or “not letting someone get their hands on my work”.

What he lacked in passion, trust in others or faith in himself, he searched for in the bottom of a bottle, drinking himself to sleep most nights, passing out on the couch, the smell of beer or whiskey wafting around the house. I didn’t notice it then; kids don’t see the bad stuff. They see their parents as perfect, people to look up to, who know everything and are meant to guide and nurture and encourage.

Despite it all, I don’t remember ever longing for something. Never went without.

***

Boards were made, diagrams drawn. I kept all the failed attempts, the broken pieces as a collection, examples of what not to do, sketched out my findings, my trials and errors. The project took on a shape as a young child explored the makings of a dwelling created by nature.

***

I didn’t have the dad who went to school events. He didn’t come to my plays, he didn’t show up to watch me play soccer, volleyball or soft ball. But he did teach me to skate, taught me a love of hockey and how to fish. He made me appreciate music, to admire instruments though I never picked any of them up myself. He taught me to be carefree and not take myself too seriously, he taught me how to not overthink, take a chance, because why not? Be impractical and enjoy myself doing it. He also taught me how a person shouldn’t be and unknowingly taught me how to be better.

***

I may have been dropped off at the science fair, but no one stuck around to watch, to see how I would make out among the working volcanoes and robots and popsicle stick bridges. The judges came around. Asked questions about my experiment, about my discoveries. I told them about the materials used, how many times I tried and failed. They tallied and check-marked and scored. It was a clever experiment. No one else in the district had anything like it.

***

There are parts of me I know came from him. The passion for writing maybe the biggest driver in my life. The stories he read, the stories he told, the songs he wrote. There was something inside him raging to get out but he wouldn’t let it, no matter how much it screamed at him to do better, be better, to make something of himself. Fear got the better of him, locked him down and didn’t let go.

All the times, while my friends were admiring how carefree and fun my dad was, I would watch their dads and wonder why I couldn’t have someone like that. Someone who paid attention, got involved, dressed clean, went to a steady job, had fun projects on the side that brought them joy, who didn’t get angry over the smallest mishap or mistake, who smelled like ambition, road trips and Disney vacations, not cigarette teeth, bad decisions and mental decay.

***

Of course, a human can’t come close to making a bird’s nest as well as a bird. There are parts of its construction we will never understand and birds do – the hidden layers, the framework. As I stood on the stage, holding my second-place ribbon, bitter that I didn’t get first, I didn’t understand why I hadn’t won. I did something none of the other students did. I didn’t just successfully demonstrate something from a textbook. I showed what could be learned from failure with a question of my own.

Building a nest is not about the pieces that go around it, it’s not the walls and floors and fancy window coverings, it’s about what goes on inside it. The feeding, nesting, and protecting. The teaching and the letting go to let the babies find their own way. And when I stop to think about it like that now, well then, the answer is yes, a human can build a bird’s nest as well as a bird.