Bird Flight

Right now, I am resigned to the necessity of patience and carefully calculated approaches. Being middle-aged, I have learned from the impulsivity of my youth. It took me a very long time to get to this point of control, and ability to safely stay put. Today, I’m aware how important it is to keep my eyes wide open to make sure I know what is ahead, aside and behind me.

In my youth, all I wanted was instant enjoyment or fix. When times were tough, I felt an escape or major shock to my system would turn things around 180 degrees. Sometimes, the escape and shocks did the trick, but often led me to walk along the dangerous edge of a tall precipice. In my youth, I learned from my cat the skill and balance to walk that dangerous line. I was also far more agile than I am now. And if I fell, I had more lives to live and ability to climb back up with my sharp long claws.  I was usually lucky and didn’t fall too far, too often; even when I became startled and hightailed it out of there, regardless of the perils ahead.

I eventually used up too many of these “cat” lives, and with each fall my mind and body grew wounded. Another fall and more extensive harm would ensue. Now I walk yards from the edge to ensure safety. When I do need to make a change , I either put on two parachutes or plan out paths in safer directions. Other times, I sit still on the solid ground, looking around myself 360 degrees and meditate. I don’t look up, because that sometimes makes me feel dizzy.

Someday in the future, I will hold up my hands full of millet seed to entice birds to land there. I’ll grab onto their wings and hold tight, and they’ll fly me over the precipice and down the mountain cliff to a new land. In that new land I’ll be happy and never have fear of falling again.