It is reassuring, isn't it, that almost no matter where you are in the world, no matter what is happening in your life, you will probably wake up to the sound of birds. The songs and chirps may be different, but their reassuring presence would be missed, as it is in northern New York/New England in winter.
This last year seems to have been a particularly challenging one for everyone I know, and people say it has been hard for everyone they know. It seems like people are not only dealing with one major life event (move, illness, operation, death, divorce, accident...) but multiple ones at once. I don't know whether this is a hallmark of "60-something" or a speeding up of the pace of life right now. When I was out in Montana, I asked my favorite 90-plus friend, one of the wisest, most beautiful women I've ever met, whether she remembered this phenomenon around the age of 60, and she shook her head "no." She would have been my age around 1980, and it was a different world back then, and perhaps life paced itself in a more manageable way. It was, after all, pre-internet. What more needs to be said?
All of us are trying to find a way to keep a calm center in the midst of what sometimes seems like near frenzy. If we can't "keep calm and go to evensong," perhaps quietly listening to the birds' "dawn chorus" every morning will keep us going equally well...it certainly helps me remember to welcome the dawn, not just stumble through it en route to the shower.
