My search for a pair of cranes for my backyard garden began a year ago. I saw a pair in the garden section of a store and went home without them. I couldn’t get them out of my mind though. Suddenly, I wanted those cranes. I didn’t know why, exactly. I just knew I was drawn to them. However, when I returned to the store to purchase the pair I had seen, they were gone.
The search began, driven by an inexplicable desire to have cranes. I looked everywhere, not finding any. Then in August, as I climbed the stones steps to the entrance to Thirlestane Castle, in Lauder, Scotland, I stopped in surprise. It took traveling 4,213 miles to uncover the reason for the desire to have the cranes, although it deepened the mystery.
A pair of tall, graceful cranes stood guard at the castle door. I had never seen a picture of the Thirlestane Castle cranes, although I’ve studied many pictures of the home of my ancestors. I had no idea they were there. Or did I, on some level? I have no other explanation for my sudden longing for a pair of cranes, other than that it was energetically mingled with my longing for home…a home I had never seen but was journeying toward.
I never found the cranes last year, although I searched in multiple cities and states and had family members on the alert, watching for them. Recently, daughter Elissa had a crane sighting at a local warehouse type membership store. I was thinking Friday that I’d contact Elissa on Monday to see if we could visit that store, to check out the cranes, since I don’t have a membership to that store.
Yesterday, while I was in Tulsa, Ok preparing to attend a musical, I received a phone call from my mom. She was excited to tell me that she had found a pair of metal cranes in a Joplin garden center! I’m proud of my mom. She managed to take a pic with her phone and text it to me! Then I was excited. There were my cranes. There were the cranes I had been searching for.
Mom bought the cranes and I picked them up from her this afternoon, reimbursing her and thanking her for stepping inside Sutherlands, where we had shopped for flowers last Saturday, without ever leaving the outdoor garden center. Yesterday she just thought she would peek inside. She was unaware that the cranes were calling to her, but she answered the call, nonetheless. I am so grateful. The cranes are in my garden. They are home.
The first Clematis blossoms, welcoming the cranes to the garden!