Songbirds

Yes, I love thinking about beginnings. I don’t like endings, though I suppose I’m like most people in that. An ending can be staring you right in the face without you knowing it.

You see, when you clump people together and don’t understand their personal stories, you can make up any bullshit and convince yourself it’s the truth.

But be patient. Reality and truth need time to unravel.

After the war, I learned a lesson I would never forget: how a person can disappear inside themselves, and that, sometimes, like my father, they are never able to find their way back.

As if she couldn’t quite allow herself to enjoy the pleasures of one world without being pulled into the other. Her home was always waiting for her.

Since it came to Earth, the water has been cycling through air, rocks, animals, and plants. Each molecule has been on an incredible journey. When you feel alone, try to remember that at some point the water inside you would have been inside dinosaurs, or the ocean, or a polar ice cap, or maybe a storm cloud over a faraway sea at a time when that sea was still nameless. Water crosses millennia and boundaries and borders.

Remember we all have something in common, and that is the water that runs through us.

When there is love, there is a safe place for sadness.

container with about an inch of water and placed

You see, we have to eat, and we have to survive, and yet we must protect our dignity and our identity. There are things we do to achieve those things. But we can respect the land and the animals that are on it. Always be kind to the land, the people, and the animals that are on it. Remember that. It’s the most important rule in the world.

Now that I could hear this woman’s song—a melody that told a story I couldn’t understand—I hoped with all of my heart that it wasn’t too late.