Peck a little.
December 31, 2009
I remember this moment as vividly as is the peacock’s own plumage. I was terrified of his beak. I envisioned a wound in my palm much like the wound on my fingertip from the box turtle that bit me at Beth Requist’s house a decade and a half earlier. Just seconds after this picture was snapped, the majestic bird dipped its head into my little dish of seeds and flipped it into the air and pecked the parcels of food off the dusty ground as I jolted backwards with a little shriek. It was utterly thrilling and fully mystifying that I could be halfway around the world feeding a peacock in the desert and somehow fulfilling a life dream I never knew I had. It was me, my birds, and my joyful fear.
Today I trudged through the snowy muck to get back to my car, which I had left in a few inches of snow after work last night due to a wiper blade malfunction. It was 15 blocks from the apartment to the car. It was on block three that I slipped on the ice and landed directly and with full gravitational force on my hip. Also my gloves and my hat were in my car, 12 blocks away. It was par for the course, as I had woken up in a good mood today… the most rare mood for me to wake in, so it would make sense that not much else would go my way. I hit the ice with the same little shriek I let out when the peacock startled me. This time I got up without making a sound, without cracking a smile (I was glad that “cracking” was not part of the experience at all in any form…). And then I just moved on. One foot in front of the other. One slip on the ice to another reason for getting up and keeping on with it. Some days you just have to find a reason to keep moving. Some days you just have to find a reason to believe in love.
Today it is just me, my birds, and my joyful fear. The birds are in the whites of my eyes and there is a lot less joy in my fear today, but I feel a lot more like that girl in the picture than I did even yesterday. My reason to keep getting up, my reason to keep moving, my reason to believe in Love.
