I wake with a feeling of emptiness. I lack motivation at this time in my life.
I rouse myself. Change clothes. Make coffee. Take the dog out. Drink coffee. Vape. Sometimes I call a friend if I’m feeling especially in the hole. I need to figure out what to do.
I have some tasks on my desk, but for some reason I feel listless toward them. Working at home alone has its edges of loneliness, and too much alone time reminds me of the panic of pandemic.
“I feel like I need a dose of inspiration,” I say to Kurt on the phone.
“Why don’t you take a walk around the block with the binoculars?” he suggests.
So I do. I became an amateur birdwatcher later on in the pandemic, but I haven’t been investing much in it lately.
I walk around the block with my ears tuned to the sky. Whistles here and there. I follow the sounds.
I stand underneath the trees and lift my binoculars to the sky. I scan the trees, on alert for any sign of movement.
And there they are, caught in the viewfinder: Two green parrots perched on the inside of perfectly matched green foliage. They have a red outline of a circle with yellow in the middle on the tops of their heads. They’re just sitting there preening. One preens himself then pecks his beak over to his mate to pick at her feathers.
They’re perfectly hidden amongst the abundant green leaves. I feel like I witnessed a private moment. They’re out in the open but you’d never know they were there if you didn’t look up.
That was a magical way to break me out of my funk and remind me that there’s such delight in the natural world. The natural world is all around us. We coexist.
I’m looking for meaning, I said to myself as I embarked this morning.
I always am. It gets exhausting. The best part of my day yesterday was walking to the Colorado Lagoon and lying underneath the trees for a while.
I need a daily dose of nature. Somehow some way.
That’s how I deal with the cacophony of the world. I find refuge and peace in nature.
And they are two sides of the same coin: my love and reverence towards nature on the one side, and my fear and terror over environmental destruction on the other.
Because I love nature, I contribute my time to protect her.
Work, relax, work, relax. We go through the rhythms of life.
With ease and grace. Around the sun again. Wake, sleep, wake, sleep.
Today I was reminded, the magic is there if you look for it.