I walk the same path every day.
Up the lane. Down the lane. Quiet. Empty. Familiar.
It’s easy to believe I’ve already seen everything here.
I stopped along the lane, staring at the ground the way I’m used to, watching my feet, reading the earth for safety, for orientation. My neck tightened when I tried to look up. My throat felt exposed. My breath shortened. The familiar discomfort of opening, of lifting my gaze toward something larger than myself, showed up immediately.
It’s strange how effort lives in the body like habit.
I had already walked past the moment when the sound reached me. Only once I moved did I realize how loud it was. A rushing, layered chorus above my head. I turned back and stood still again, this time closing my eyes.
Listening asked more of me than seeing.
When I finally looked up, the branches were alive. Dozens of mountain chickadees moving in quick, darting arcs. A nuthatch hopping along the trunk. Seeds passing beak to beak. Communication unfolding in a language I don’t speak but somehow recognize.
One bird came close. Too close to ignore. It hopped back and forth between two branches like a pendulum, watching me watch it. Curious. Alert. Unafraid.
I wished I had birdseed. I wished I had been ready.
As my body softened, my attention wavered. The effort to stay open, to release my throat, my chest, my breath, became so consuming that I missed the moment it actually worked. Relief arrived before awareness. The discomfort left, but I couldn’t locate what replaced it.
Joy, maybe. Or something quieter.
I wanted to capture it, but the moment had already passed. And I couldn’t go back. Only forward, knowing that I’d meet it again differently next time.
That’s what growth feels like now.
Not a single revelation, but a cycle of knowing and unknowing. Of opening, missing, softening, and returning. Of realizing that even on the same path, even in the same place, nothing is ever repeated.
The birds were never hidden.
I just hadn’t been listening yet.
