"The real things in life are not houses, bank accounts, prizes, or promotions..."

..."love it is which wins the day.On this burning road, fenced with barbed wire to keep the goats from straying, I find for a minute what I came here for, which is a sure sign that I will lose it again instantly.  I felt whole. "

from lighthousekeeping, by Jeanette Winterson

In the novel by Winterson, the narrator steals a parrot because it speaks her name.  It says her name and she must own the parrot and listen to it say her name.  Eventually she is found out, and is sent to a psychologist.  As she explains to him, she was not talking to the bird - the bird was talking to her.  The bird reminded her who she was.  Which doesn't help him understand.  He asks her if she feels she has more than one life, to which she replies in the affirmative.  Robert Louis Stevenson, who figures as a character in this book, is who she looks to to help her explain:
"Do you know the story of Jekyll and Hyde?"
"Of course."
"Well then - to avoid either extreme it is necessary to find all the lives in between." 

A trio of bird cages ...

This photo, which I took this summer is currently one of my favourites.  They look so much better empty.
If one were to own a cage, maybe one would feel obligated to keep a bird in it? I think I would only want an enchanted nightingale. Or one that knew my name?
How many cages do we ourselves live in, unaware that we are inside?  What are those real things in life?

Winterson's character, Silver, says it is love.  "I think of love as a force of nature  - as strong as the sun, as necessary, as impersonal, as gigantic, as impossible, as scorching as it is warming, as drought-making as it is life-giving."
However, "my little orbit circles love. I daren't get any closer. I am not a mystic seeking  final communion.  I don't go out without SPF 15.  I protect myself."
The real thing is love.  But love does not equate only with happiness.  It has value, "the highest value", but it is not the "answer or solution".  It simply is.  Meaning is found through searching, through wonder, and if one is lucky, it can be found through love (love defined as communion and not just with people), which will make us whole.