Balcony holiday

Holiday today.  Day off work.  I've committed to attend an event this evening, but I'm free for the day.  How do I wish to spend my day? Three things I could do: 1) Go out and enjoy the beauty of the day, gaze at trees, rollerblade, kayak, listen to the birds, 2) Go  to my office.  I'm very behind on my work and it's my fault because I have not been doing a good job of focusing.  Sometimes it's easier to focus when no one is there, like today.  3) Stay home and work on my various chores, such as figuring out a different job, figuring out what maintenance needs to be done on my car, paying my bills, sorting through the clutter.

I sit on my balcony.  There are lots of birds.  Some I hear but do not see.  Some I see.  I see a finch, a cardinal.  I like seeing the birds.  I should go out in the woods and be still, still until the birds are no longer afraid, and I can watch them and listen to them.

I am here, and I am still, and the birds are no longer afraid.  On my balcony, I'm closer to the branches than I would be on the ground in the woods.

Three crows land in the tree next to me.  They are so large.  Why three? Don't birds usually travel either as flocks or as pairs?

I hear the sound of a gull in the distance.  I don't often hear gulls around here.  The gull sounds like the sea.  The sea is embedded deep in my heart.  The sound of the gull touches there.  It pierces me like a teardrop.

So many different birds are talking.  Are there usually this many? Usually I am here in the evening. Are there more because it's morning? It's not sunrise though, it's four hours after sunrise.

To humans, it seems the birds sing because they are happy.  To humans, the flight of birds is freedom.  I feel it on my lunch hour -- I see the hawk soaring, and I feel I've escaped the pressures of my job.

I don't know why birds really sing.  I mean, I think they sing to attract a mate, to warn of danger, to declare their territory, but I don't know why they sing at sunrise, or why they are singing now.

Whatever the birds do, they aren't trying to decide whether to spend the day kayaking or applying for jobs.  It seems a simple life -- eat, mate, build a nest, raise the young, travel in spring and fall to a more pleasant climate.  It seems like an enviable life.

But lives of birds are short, and I find joy in many things not known to birds.

The squirrel runs along the tree trunk.  The squirrel is the same color as the tree.  You can see the squirrel was meant to be there.

And I was born to be human.  Human is what I am, where I belong.  Human, sitting on balcony, pondering the sound of birds.  This is what I am meant to be. This is what I am.