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7 Diagnosis: Birds in the Blood The hummingbird’s nervous embroidery through beach fog by our back patio’s potato vine reminds me of my mother’s southern drawl from the kitchen: She’s flying, flying like a bird! I’ve heard that as a child I involuntarily flapped my hands at my side during moments of intense concentration. I’d flutter over a drawing, a doll, a blond hamster in a shoebox maze. There are ways to keep from breaking apart. My guardians. My avian blood. I believed birds bubbled inside me—my own diagnosis—though the doctors called it something else: a harmless twitch. A body’s crossed wires. The lost birds of my childhood nerves have never returned. But when you held 8 my elbow as we walked the four blocks to the boardwalk, we saw the brief dazzle of a blackchinned hummingbird—the first I’d ever seen. It sheened and tried to sip from my sizzled wrists’ vanilla perfume. I knew a single one from the magic flock had finally found me. ...

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