What brought this on?

There comes a point in most people’s lives when they have to pause, take stock, and face facts.  A life in denial is not a fulfilling one.  And before you can really live your life, you have to accept who you are.

I mulled over this for weeks as I started to think about this blog.  The idea to blog dropped from the sky, like most of my good ones, but I kept coming up with reasons not to do it, not willing to commit, because I knew it meant admitting and embracing a hard, geeky truth.

And though I have been a geeky oddball for most of my life (high school math team, college glee club), I’ve spent years trying to put that behind me.  I fancied, perhaps wrongly, that I’d established some modicom of street cred in recent years.  Cred that this latest realization would most certainly shatter.

And so I wavered.

But days then weeks passed and I found myself completely unable to work on my other writing projects.  I was blocked and I did it to myself –- out of sheepish embarrassment and fear.  So here I am, starting this blog, and admitting to anyone who cares to read it . . . .

I am. . .  a birder.

That’s right, mock me if you will, but I’m a birder.  And because I live in a city, I’m an urban birder.

Possibly the oddest of the species, I’m the woman who whips her head around and stumbles on the steps because something flew by.  I’m the one standing in the sidewalk/dirt path/small field, squinting up at a tree.  I’m the one staring through a monocular at the little bird on your roof.  –– I am not looking in your window.  (I swear, Officer, I would never do that. . . )

In retrospect, I’ve been working my way to birder for a while now.  I might get into that later, but for now, I’ll say this:

If you are walking through your day feeling overwhelmed or alone, take a deep breath, relax, and open your ears. . . .  Hear that?  That’s a bird.  Maybe ten.

They’re everywhere,  they’re living their lives,   and they’re singing about it.

You are not alone.

 

(unless you live in a toxic wasteland)