Minneapolis woman, 88, has birds eating out of her hand

Nancy B. Miller, age 88, feeds the birds — feeds them peanuts that she roasts in her apartment oven.

Chances are, an image has popped into your head.

Maybe it's the frowzy old woman in "Mary Poppins" feeding birds on the cathedral steps. Or maybe the frowzy old Pigeon Lady in "Home Alone 2" roaming New York City. Or maybe any frowzy old woman, in a worn cardigan, on a park bench, offering an open palm.

Right?

A moment, please, for a quick etymology lesson as a nod to Miller, who loves seeking out the origins of words.

The images above are stereotypes, from the Greek steros, or "solid," and the French type, meaning "image perpetuated without change."

Together, they mean "a preconceived and oversimplified notion of characteristics typical of a person or group."

Nancy B. Miller is no stereotype.

She feeds her birds with a lively intent, just as she approaches much of life.

"To make a connection with a living member of another species in the most benign of ways, well, it's just so remarkable," said Miller, the warmth in her voice mirroring the sun. But then, an icy observation: "So different from having a dog or cat, who are rather hangers-on for food."

Miller offers slightly crushed peanuts in an open palm held low and to one side. Her hand becomes a perch, fleetingly, for the red-winged blackbirds she favors.

"You have to be absolutely still," she said. Patience. Patience. The reward, when a bird almost inevitably lands, is a sense of rare kinship.

"I feel just a total innocence on both sides."

The twists and turns of life

Miller loves red-winged blackbirds, with their snappy scarlet epaulets and distinctive conk-la-REE song. Miller also cuts a smart figure in her jean skirts — "I find I'm known for them" — and blond-streaked bob.

Her apartment in Minneapolis resembles a fine art gallery, with many of the watercolors her own work. She's edited art catalogs for the Walker Art Center, worked in marketing, is active in the First Unitarian Society and restorative justice work, wrote a book about a disabled toymaker in Mexico, has season tickets to the Minnesota Orchestra.

In short: She has a life.

As to the bird-feeding, well, that requires a conversation — a word from the Latin com, or "with" and vertare, or "turn about." Thus, to converse is to talk in turns with each other.

After she and her husband, Robert, retired, they spent blissful winters in Oaxaca, Mexico.

"For a long time, I thought I'd have my ashes distributed there, in a big party with lots of mescal and fireworks," she said. "You know what they say about Mexican fireworks: They're not worthwhile unless they're life-threatening."

Miller imagines her cremains atop a spire of Catherine wheels — spinning fireworks that climb and climb, one igniting the next "until my ashes are bunged off into obscura with lots of shouts and whistles from below."

But she hasn't returned there for several years; things change. Now a more likely scattering place seems to be around the Willow River, near Hudson, Wis., where for 50 years they had a family cabin until it burned to the ground four years ago. Some local teens broke in and lit fireworks inside, not realizing they'd left behind a smoldering ember.

"They weren't malevolent — just stupid," Miller said, sighing. "We did a restorative justice session with them and their parents. It ended in hugs."

Still, she grieved. That winter, she spent a lot of time at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

"Whenever I'm in a stressful situation, that's when I go to the institute — or MEE-ah, as they say now," she said, rolling her eyes. "It's a place where I can find equanimity."

Equanimity, from the Latin aequanimitatem, or "evenness of mind, calmness; goodwill, kindness." From aequus, or "even, level," and animus, or "mind, spirit."

The joy of meeting strangers

Robert died in 1989, at age 70. "He was good for two belly laughs a day," she said, smiling. "He had his place in the universe."

She follows the rich lives of their two daughters: Eliza, once a chef, now works at a literary agency in California. Mari lives in Oregon, where she is a doctor specializing in sleep medicine.

And the bird-feeding?

"I learned how to do this from an old geezer, who just sort of did this his whole life," she said. She'd stopped to talk with him, because one of her most favorite things to do is talk to people she's never met before. "I thought, if this guy can do it, maybe I can, too."

She settled on offering peanuts, buying shelled nuts, washing off the salt and roasting them dry in her oven before finally smashing them into small pieces.

She'd rather not say in which park she feeds her red-wings; call it territorial behavior.

"I just love to see when one or two become less afraid," she said. "I think some of them may even know me. I'm terribly pleased if one stays on my hand for five seconds."

Brazen pigeons get a closed palm. "I don't want to be a birdist," she said, "but they're so entitled."

Ditto the squirrels. "Oh, dear, here comes one of those truculent opportunists."

Truculent, from the Latin truculentus, or "fierce, savage, stern." Yet the word has lost much of its etymological fierceness, now meaning "easily annoyed and likely to argue." Squirrels, right?

A passing child who shows an interest may get a lesson in bird-feeding from Miller. Adults could, too, although most just pass by.

Miller knows that some people may think that feeding birds in a park is a little simple, maybe even pitiable.

"But what have I got to lose at this point in life?" she said, then laughed. "I've been heard to say, 'I'm 88, for Chrissakes.' "

Kim Ode • 612-673-7185 • @Odewrites