The Happy List #1

I’ve grown tired of seeing so much negativity on a daily basis. I’m going to start posting things from my happy list. Which is better I think than a bucket list because happiness can’t be found or sustained via some grand exhibition but rather in the small things that we cherish and are of personal value to us.

Happy List #1
Birds
I’ve always loved to watch birds. As long as I can remember it’s been something that has filled me with great wonder and happiness. I think it has something to do with the length of freedom that they symbolize. How they can just go wherever they please whenever they like with little to no care about their surrounding world. It’s that sense of freedom that I try to incorporate into my self. To quote Whitman ‘I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable‘.
They are such beautiful little creatures that come in so many different shapes and sizes and they are each unique and special in their own ways.
I spend large blocks of time just quietly observing them and I never try to burst into their world if I can help it. I can remember once a long time ago that an Oriole got its foot caught in a rug my parents had on the front porch. So I knelt down and spoke calmly to the bird and untangled it. And the bird let me hold it for a few brief moments before taking off once more. It was was an impression burnt upon my memory and I can still picture it so vividly now all these years later.
In regards to birds on my happy list, I think nothing compares to the majesty of a murmuration of starlings. This incredible dance of hundreds of birds at once that is so precise and moving both literally and figuratively. The ebb and flow of the birds as they soar high and change course in an instant is truly and awesome sight. And in those moments when I see them I am transfixed at this display. It reminds me how beautiful the world is.

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