While eating breakfast this morning, I glanced out the window to see a robin hopping about in the grass. With one swift peck, it found a worm and swallowed it. The bird stood still for a moment before beginning again to explore the ground, a peck here, another there, yet not seeming to find anything. A short flight took the robin to the packed earth underneath the azalea by my window, where it found what looked like a small twig, picked it up in its beak, then flew off to where I imagined it might be building its nest. It returned, empty-beaked. I watched it again for a while as it hopped, stopped, looked around, picked something up and, once again, flew off.
Why, you might ask, am I telling you this very short story about something so ordinary; about a behavior happening in every yard and every field this spring, every spring, day after day, year after year?
My answer: I am learning to pay attention to these moments precisely because they are ordinary, so much a part of nature going about its daily business. “To front,” as Thoreau famously wrote, “the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach.” From the robin, I learned that, by taking time to find food for itself, eat it and wait (digesting the worm?) before flying off to its nest-building task, it was taking care of itself first. After a long night, the bird was certainly hungry. While springtime had aroused its nesting instincts, still, before working, before building its nest it needed to eat.
I’m reminded of two things. First, the standard air flight attendant’s advice to put on your own oxygen mask before helping someone else and secondly, this bit of biblical wisdom: “love your neighbor as yourself”, the operative word being “as”. If the way you take care of yourself isn’t kind, caring and gentle, you just may end up treating your neighbor unlovingly as well.
So now, take a break. Breathe deeply for a moment or two. Have a cup of tea before crossing off the next item on your list. Read a poem, do a puzzle, eat dark chocolate, call a friend. Or simply contemplate a robin outside your window.