Black Bird Beautiful

I'm usually not one to stop and smell the roses so to speak. I tend to go super speed through life pointing to things I pass along the way to acknowledge their existence. Now that I think about it, I do that quite a bit actually. I see, acknowledge, and may even comment about them because as I'm sure you've figured out by now, I do have an opinion on most everything in the world.

Every so often though, I get the bizarre feeling that the world around me slows to a crawling pace as if to suggest that I had better look up from whatever list I'm reviewing or master plan I'm concocting just to witness a distinct beauty presented before me. I got that feeling today.

I left work just as I do every day and hopped in my car. Off I went, buzzing around town heading for the freeway toward home. I was sitting at a stop light waiting to turn left onto the onramp when it happened. In my head, I was running through what I would be doing when I got to the gym, how long I would do it, and plotting out step by step what the rest of my day would consist of when woosh...there it was. Everything slowed.

I noticed a white pickup truck in front of me as we are turning to get on the freeway. In the bed of the truck, there was a dancing swarm of all different colored fall foliage. Now, I want to make sure you understand what I mean by dancing swarm. Typically if leaves are disturbed by a gush of wind, they fly every which way in no pattern or noticable repetition. Well, these leaves looked as though they were following a choreographed routine set to the music of the wind. The other phenomenon that struck me was that very few of them were actually flying out of the truck. They were neatly contained in their melodic performance and it was spectacular.

Then, when I eventually made it home, I realized that I had forgotten to eat my snack and was famished. So, I grabbed a bowl, a spoon, measured and poored my milk and cereal and stood at my back window looking over my beautiful new back yard (I completely relandscaped my property this summer).

The weather outside was spotty rain and very windy. I noticed off in the distance a group of trees maybe five or six thick. There were a few black birds or perhaps crows, whatever they might have been. Anyway, there were a few birds dotting the sky over the trees but nothing out of the ordinary. So I stood just watching the trees swaying in the wind which is beautiful in and of itself when all of a sudden a huge disturbance. Immediately, there were hundreds of birds filling the sky. Where did they all come from? There were a hand full and then there were hundreds just like that. Did they all just arrive from a distance or were they disturbed from their resting places in the trees I was watching? I couldn't tell but couldn't help but wonder what the disturbance might have been if they hadn't just arrived.

I watched them circle the trees and chase each other two on two swooping and diving as if to play a game of keep away or a bird version of tag. They also seemed to be enjoying the wind as they hovered in place with wings spread wide. I wonder what it would feel like to float on the wind feeling the breeze blow through you like that. Would it be a powerful and freeing feeling? I guess I got lost in watching their antics for a moment or maybe more, I can't be sure. The next thing I knew, the sky was clear again. Only a couple birds in sight. Where had they all gone? Why had they all gone? Was the disturbance or potential threat gone leaving their trees safe to inhabit again? Or had the wind died down a bit ending their lovely play time?

In that moment, standing at my back window watching the birds in the wind and trees swaying, I found myself feeling happy. Content. Peaceful. Every time I experience this slowing affect, I feel something in me connect to the earth. Every time, I wish I could recreate it. Every time, I eventually lose it and forget that it happened until the next time when I'm reminded in the beauty of these moments. Then I realized, how lucky I am to get to experience that feeling at all. Watching, feeling, hearing, being beauty in a particular moment in time.



I had a lovely day. How about you?