To this day

I went about my doings hoping to bump into a story, something to take my mind off the heaviness. It had been a terrible week, and I needed to connect with goodness, with lightheartedness, and joy. I told myself to be receptive, and I fully expected to be delighted by some simple, special moment – a chance meeting, a song, a baby with a gummy grin trading gazes with a wrinkled soul.

But, there was no story, neither that day nor the next. I won’t say I was disappointed, because who am I to insist that the world should erase my sadness? I felt a pang of wistfulness and wondered where wonder had gone. I thought perhaps it was equally weary, needing a break from the heartbreak of reality, the hopelessness of showing up hopefully.

There were others, many others, moving through their moments, marking time, making choices. Some of them probably felt as I did, but I couldn’t see past the expressions they wore on the outside. Were they crushed like me? Angry like me? Were they wishing, like me, that they could make anything make sense? Would their faces be wet with tears as they wept in silence that night?

Deciding, eventually, that these things cannot be orchestrated, I set my longing aside. Were I lucky enough to be given a new day, I would discover in it another opportunity to examine the messy business of humanity. That was all. I was not prepared to show unconditional mercy. I still had work to do.

The next morning, at the gym, I pulled the lifeless body of a Black-Capped Chickadee from the grill of a car parked near mine. I felt so bad for the wee bird that I gave it a modest burial at the base of a young tree, then and there, before returning home in the warming sunshine.

Needing the reassurance of their grassy jasmine fragrance, I plucked more daffodils to supplement the bouquets I already had inside. Across the way an assertive drilling, followed from the opposite direction by the call of a Pileated Woodpecker. Noticing its animated cheer-cheer-cheering, my 16-year-old cat scampered ten or twelve steps towards a Carolina Wren before remembering the limits of her age. A bluebird paused long enough on an arborvitae for me to grab my good camera and snap a few shots.

I texted birthday wishes to Rebecca, whom I’ve adored since grade school - my longest lasting friendship. We’d fallen out of sequence with our regular check-in calls, and it felt good to recommit to those.

A Northern Flicker spent hours dancing between several small trees at the front of the woods, its recurrent messages strong and enchanting.

There was an unmistakable holiness to it all.

The stories I need are there, even when I can’t hear them, trusting me to find my way back to them, again and again.

~Elizabeth