Symphony of Car Bird Shoe

The other morning, I came downstairs to the kitchen, rummaged through the cabinets, and carried over items for my daily morning ritual to the kitchen table: a banana, a spoon, some nut butter, coffee, and the crossword puzzle. I sat down and scanned the puzzle. In time I began to fill in the answers, until I came to the clue: A big part of Chad. I was almost sure the answer was Sahara, but to be double-sure I checked online. I quickly verified the answer (indeed, Sahara), but then did what I sometimes do when I pseudo-cheat on the crossword: started to educate myself on something I don’t know. In this case, the country of Chad.

I broke the banana out of its peel and began to slather the nut butter on a chunk of it. My favorite moment of everyday for years: banana slathered with nut butter at breakfast. I took a mouthful and began to read about Chad, a country I’m sure I’ve never thought about once before. As I chewed my food, I read that it’s the 7th poorest country in the world, with over 40% of its population living in poverty. I took a nice long sip of nice hot coffee and settled back in my chair. I was having a cozy morning thus far while I read that nearly 38% of the kids aged 5 and under in Chad are stunted from malnutrition. I saw the unsettling images online as I placed the last of my tasty breakfast into my mouth. The dissonance of the moment was lost on me. I read the terrible numbers, and lingered over the sad faces, but didn’t notice the common features of my usual morning which were as invisible to me as the lush ground outside.

Then, on a subsequent evening I decided to push open the umbrella and take a little walk in the rain. It wouldn’t be too far, just a stroll so I could think around some ideas and have a pea-sized adventure. I’d walk across the way and back, half a mile all told. I donned my coat and scarf but kept my flipflops on (for it’s flipflop season again!) It sure was chilly, but immediately I noted the rain pattering on the fabric of the umbrella, a dreamy percussion of the sky. I was enjoying, so I disregarded the chill.

I walked a bit, thinking this was a great decision by me, this mini adventure, until the bare tops of my feet started to notice the experience. At first it was the deepening cold they didn’t like, but then it was the sliding around in the flipflops that got them to speak up. I had a dissenter. Suddenly I was forced to second-guess the walk. Then another dissenter stepped up—my legs. By this time my pants had been soaking themselves in gradation: the bottom hem soaked to the lower leg soaked to the knees. This was when all of me started to fuss. My eyebrows dove downward, and my shoulders clenched tightly together. We were not happy with this rain. What started as a thing of adventure, was now a subject of my collective ire.

Brrr. What was I thinking? This rain is a mess. Cold. Cruel! A joy-killer.

But I was oblivious to the fact that such a rain in some places on the planet would be cause for great celebration. No doubt they’d be running out of their homes in ecstatic disbelief. There are folks in some places hoping for rain, praying for rain, fearing the continuation of no rain. And on the flip side, there are other folks in other places hoping for a dry spell, praying for no more rain, fearing the continuation of too much rain. One person’s cruel rain is another’s blessed rain. And for me? I was having the usual, average, and helpful amount of rain and I was cursing it. I couldn’t see the potential value of those drops falling around me. While it’s true that being cold and wet is a fine excuse to kvetch, I wasn’t noticing that the rain itself was neither inherently good nor bad. In fact, it possessed different values, depending. On that evening, falling on top of my little stroll, a reasonable amount of rain was in play, and for plenty of folks this would be a great serendipity.

I made my way back home, dried off, and then my days and nights circulated around until I found myself driving to the store to stock up on some things, as this seems to be my inclination anymore. I generally listen to the news on the radio just enough and hopefully not much more, so I took a few minutes to listen to discussion on current topics: energy dependence, supply chain, missiles, bombardment, refugees. This time it wasn’t lost on me that I was driving to the store to buy more ‘necessities’ at the very moment that halfway around the world folks were hunkering down in subway tunnels. This time I noticed the asymmetry. Any fretting that I had over having to maneuver the traffic or spend the extra time disappeared once it became clear how fortunate I was to have a car and money and time and safety, and I’m positive you know this too.

But then just as I came to my left turn into the shopping center I looked up and saw the moon. It was a faint rendering of it, translucent in the sky, making its way to a late-morning exit on the horizon. It seemed so quiet to me, hanging there. It also yawned right in front of my car. Its vast huge body was doing what it’s been doing for billions of years—going to sleep. It could barely keep its eyes open to glance at our troubles. One day we’ll have faded from the planet, but the moon will still be yawning like this at the end of its day, carefree and unassuming, uninterested in the barely perceptible change that happens on the giant round rock in front of it. That day, as I turned into the grocery store parking lot, one celestial rock was abuzz with great happenings, while the other was falling sound asleep. Both were certain of what was real.

Finally, just today I was out for my typical walk. This led me three miles out from my front door, then three back. Somewhere near my turn-around point I decided to focus my attention on the sounds around me. At first, I picked up the individual noises: birds, cars, a showy non-mufflered car in the distance; planes in the sky, the breeze, the scuff of my feet. But then my ears began to collect these sounds, arrange them, and play their own piece of music, a symphony of sorts.

As I gradually moved toward the busy 4-lane highway that runs through this neck of the woods, the first movement of the musical work established itself. It began with a thunderous plane overhead, as there are many arriving and departing around here. Although it was one of the constant succession of planes in the sky, this lucky plane was now featured in my musical piece. Its roar came like a train onto the stage, shocking the ears, jolting any sleepers awake. (For example, that moon.) It overpowered the senses, and thus began my outdoor orchestration.

The plane flew off soon enough and made way for the delicate violin chirps of the birds. This was the moment the symphony revealed its theme lurking beneath, the purpose of life, the beauty of the living. I admired the dance of sound these creatures were making now that I took care to notice their calls to each other across trees and street. It was a lullaby. It was a delightful ballet. It was a folk song.

Then the final movement commenced. I was close to the highway now and the traffic that rushed along was a collection of cello, brass, and drum. There was a back-and-forth, too. In the moments when the traffic hushed at a red light in the distance, the bird calls reappeared and made for a question-and-answer between the might of the traffic and the whisper of the biological world. Then out of nowhere the scuff of my shoes chimed in. The complexity of all the sounds flying past my ears came to a culminating crescendo. And then, I turned around and headed home.

Normally, I wouldn’t have noticed more than a handful of these sounds, but this day on this walk they became an opus. What was typically unnoticed at best, and disruptive at worst, had become an unlikely and unique experience.

All these recent moments coordinated together to remind me that there are myriad ways to notice the things that move atop the conveyor belt through my days. The day brings many things: joy, concern, irritation, opportunity, ideas, hope. They pass in front of me, I make my interpretations of them, then they move off into my past where they’re catalogued for history but also for the future. That I do this is as common as can be. But it doesn’t confuse the fact that there are numerous ways to interpret the world in front of me, many of which can be so vastly different from the ones I’m apt to choose. On the days when I accidentally notice that I might have chosen a different interpretation, or that I suddenly want to choose a different one—those are the moments that shine a light. This is a thing of excitement to me, to know that there are options for seeing, and that there is a vastness out there to see.

And to have these moments when I discover there is far more out there--which can be terrifying or terrific, surprising or humbling—it is always something I want.

May you shine many lights and see many things, lovely friends.