The first teacher arrived in gray-brown overcoat.  She fussed and flew in circles in the small classroom while I, her student, watched from the doorway.  The stripes on her shoulders glowed green against the afternoon sun.

What’s happening? I thought before saying aloud, “I don’t understand.  I didn’t expect you.”

The hummingbird rose higher toward the white ceiling of our back-porch classroom, running frantic laps around the static ceiling fan.  I watched her in clouded trance.

For eight years my screened door was kept latched.  The recent passing of my ancient blind dog changed routine and habit.  For the first time in a decade there’s no sightless or otherwise challenged dog needing my assistance to reach the yard.  Now I simply open the back door and send the current pesky duo out onto the screened porch, through the propped outer door and into the yard.

Keeping my porch closed to the world meant never learning what lurked in the yard during the day.  The shut portal kept life at bay.  The open door brought new challenges.  And so it goes opening oneself to living.

A Google search led to troubling facts.  A hummingbird will escalate in frantic motion, rising higher to escape, as instinct directs, until fatigue and lack of fuel ground her, permanently if she doesn’t soon receive nourishment.  As I read the grim report, she called out in fear while hitting the ceiling and the nearly invisible vertical screen.   The tiny bird cried for help as I exited our classroom.

Within minutes I was back, fishing net in tow.  It seemed the best choice after consulting with a Spanish-speaking shopper who shared my aisle at Wal-Mart.  Between languages and through rudimentary signs, he understood the basics: bird necesita ayudar.  Bird needs help.  Without language we agreed on the best choice – a large fishing net made of a lightweight synthetic less likely to injure my captive.  The telescoping handle meant no ladder was needed.

At our second meeting, the creature sat alit on a ceiling-fan blade and wobbled front to back as I considered my options.  1) Climb a ladder to move her more gently by hand.  2) Place the newly bought feeder on the fan blade next to her for an energy boost.  3) Go for broke and use the net.

To expedite her release I chose Option 3.  The weary bird held the net with her tiny claws, allowing me to move her onto the hedge just off the porch.  Still shaky, she sat briefly before flying away at half speed.  Not sure she would live, I turned on an outside light and placed the new red feeder atop a fence post under the spotlight.

The plan was to return the $40 net after work the following evening.

One rising of the moon later, I returned to the back-porch classroom to fetch the large-mouthed fishing net.  As I spun to begin the return trip to Wal-Mart, I saw the next teacher, this time a shiny green dragonfly buzzing against the screen.

With patience in heart and net in hand, I released the critter to ride the currents between my house and the nearby pond.

For 10 days the story replayed.  All that changed with each telling was the exact bug in question, and the most effective way to free it.  There were damselflies, moths, a black swallowtail butterfly, an Eastern swallowtail, two carpenter bees, and one very persistent yellow jacket.  There was even a tree frog that came calling.  With a few gentle swoops of my net, I saved them all.

I’ve thought about it so much.  Why the repetition?  Why now and not in the first weeks the door was propped open?  What am I meant to learn?

Last Friday night I made notes under the heading “Patterns or Traps.”  The words flowed from pen to paper outlining a few, often repeated and not-so-effective behaviors.

The bottom line is life is an ongoing test, and my few long-standing patterns have each reappeared in the days since my recent lesson began.  What isn’t learned the first, second or fifth time in life will roll around again, until we finally get it right.  My winged visitors serve to remind me of something I already know if I’ll but release control and habit.

My first teacher alights my thoughts.  On some level, we are all she – the soft fragile soul trapped within feet of an open escape route.  Like our friend, we scurry higher and higher, led by instinct to escape when we’re cornered or at risk.  We cry and cry, using costly energy when the answer, the open threshold, is just behind us; we simply fail to look, or to listen.

We all do this.  We become trapped (or perceive that we are), struggle, find freedom, stabilize, and then do the same damned thing again.

Like my teachers, we panic, fight to be right, to be first, to be loved, or even to remain unseen.  Whatever our protective patterns, we do everything possible – reach for every distraction except the one thing that can save us.  We fail to humble ourselves, to come down from our high places and float through the open door.  Instead, like my small winged friends, we tire ourselves to the point that we put our well-being at risk.

Our situations change, and we change, too.  There were times when the open door held a different meaning for me.  Once it represented the flow of energy in my life – straight out the door and pointed in someone else’s direction.  Thankfully those days are behind me.  I no longer wish to close the door for my own protection.  Now I simply need an occasional reminder the portal is there.

Thresholds foster two-way motion.  The coming in is as important as the going out.  Our movement and our failure to move can be the curse or the blessing.  Each day is ours to decide.