Important calls.

I try, of course, to be mindful--to be always observant, watching, aware.  But Friday morning, the white sky and clouded ground were a good mirror for my current over-occupied mind. On a mid-morning trip back to the house to make yet another pot of coffee in an attempt to finish out a last low-sleep push through deadlines, overdues, and quite possibly impossible goals, with my head down against the freezing drizzle, my eyes were on nothing more than the slickening snow underfoot, and barely noticing even that.  It's easy to not look, with a mind over-full.

Luckily some senses tune in on their own, and the sound stopped me in my trudge even before it fully registered.  Two notes, familiar, compelling, and new to today.  They brought my eyes up from the snow to slowly rotate and scan the treetops to find it, the small dot high in the birch, calling again.  Of course, it's a familiar song, but it took two calls and the image of the shape for it to fall into place:  a black-capped chickadee.

And with that, the quick instant, I realized 1) I hadn't been paying attention and 2) that I hadn't heard that call or seed any chickadees for a while.  It called me back, and put be back on alert (or at least more alert), and more likely to notice the next thing.  I'm grateful for that two-note call, and for the parts of me that can be watching and listening to that outside world even when I don't realize it.



You can read about (and hear the recording of it) here at the fantastic Cornell Lab website:

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Black-capped_Chickadee/id