My little Chickadee

I have been carrying around a feeling of unease. Carrying an overwhelmed and unsettled heart. A bit lost. A little alone. The darkness seemed to fall with the sickness that kept me down this last week. I have mostly shaken the bug, I haven’t shaken the fog.

I hadn’t taken a single bird photo in 10 days. Ten days.

I could not find the interest, the excitement. I had fallen out of love with everything, everyone.

And then, just a few moments ago I asked God, “Where are you??” and I looked up and I saw this little chickadee.

And I laughed.

There He is.

Yesterday I saw this little black-capped chickadee at my feeder. I was so excited. I hadn’t seen a chickadee since leaving my house in the woods of Wilkeson some 15 years ago.

I told John Ross at church that morning, “I saw a chickadee this morning!”

He grinned a wide grin and said, “I see them every morning, both kinds! They drain my feeder every day there are so many of them.”

A common bird to him, well loved, but still, common.

But to me? A gift, a rare gift. And a gift of a friend that can share in the love of the common chickadee? That’s God. (Hi Jayne!)

And then later I realized that the bird that I had been thinking all along was just another common house finch, was actually a purple finch.

Again, I haven’t seen one since Wilkeson.

So I came home to stalk him with my camera lens and I captured him. I captured him, his girlfriend and another couple traveling with him.

There was God.

And this morning, I look out my window toward the mountain and watched with amazement as a huge, black bird flew to the top of the barn down the road. I had never seen anything that large here.

I grabbed my camera and jumped in my car and hurried down the road to get as close as I could so I could identify the massive beastly bird.

It’s a raven. A noble, frighteningly huge, impressive raven.

I have never seen one before.

He was two feet long if he was an inch.

Where is God?

Where is God NOT?!

I told a friend the other day that I felt like I was at a crossroads, but the problem is I’m not sure where that crossroads is, I’m lost. How do I know where to turn if I don’t even know what the choices are?

I’m still lost, but I know that wherever I step, whichever way I turn, God will be there.

Today I read in the  A Year with Rumi:

… But don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth, so everyone will understand the passage. … Start walking toward Shams. Your legs will get heavy and tired. Then comes a moment of feeling the wings you’ve grown. Lifting.

Do I have wings? Perhaps. Perhaps I’m just afraid to use them.

“Come to the edge,” he said.
They said, “We are afraid.”
“Come to the edge,” he said.
They came.
He pushed them…
And they flew.

~Guillaume Apollinaire

P.S. Not everything I write has to have deep meaning or be said well or even come close to being prosetically perfect (I just made up the word prosetically). Sometimes I feel like I’m running out of words and if I use up too many I won’t have enough to write the stories for the newspaper. I wear out. I’m worn out. I need a recharge.

~ by Kimberly Mason on February 7, 2011.