Today doesn’t feel beautiful when I wake up. The weather is a middling grey, neither bright sunshine nor cozy rain. And perhaps that’s it – perhaps it’s the weather. Or perhaps it’s simply that it’s Monday, and Mondays often feel misshapen. But on days like today that I remind myself to move extra slowly. To listen. Notice. Pay attention.
We take an early walk each morning. Today, half asleep, I stumble out into the fields, the dog racing ahead of me, and disturb a flock of tiny birds sleeping in the grass. They fly up around us, hovering, weaving, in a susurration of feathers. For a moment, I am surrounded by the sound of beating wings.
The birds have divided the field up between them: tiny birds there, crows at the back, and a white mass of gulls by the fence. The magpies I’ve grown so fond of are waiting for us by the trees, fluttering their white patches. I like to think they come to see me each day. That, somehow, I’ve become as familiar to them as they are to me.
