Life in Motion

We are made to be dynamic

After a really lovely vacation, I came home to this (above). The 3-foot maple sapling we found abandoned, broken, and left to die in an alley years ago, is now arguably the most beautiful tree in the neighborhood. And the once lush, well-tended patch of grass in its shadow has become a feasting ground for a local murder of crows. Apparently, the search for some sort of grub has set hordes of birds tearing up lawns and parking strips with killing intent (okay, Alfred Hitchcock).

Or maybe, these birds are just out to prove the inevitability of change. Life, messing with our expectations, whether we like it or not.

When the tree was a gnarly, unsightly transplant on my corner, the sod grew fresh and emerald green. Over the last several years, the homely tree became lush, while moss and clover invaded the grass. Try as I might to keep everything together, looking its best, nature rages outside my control (some say that’s the message of The Birds).

The insulting crows just came to reframe the view once again.

My vacation mindset was to seek out magical moments. I stored up curiosities, took pretty pictures, wondered at the beauty in big and small things. I thought I could bring that same perspective home and set myself up for more steady, creative questing.

But I returned to election angst, an management crisis in an organization I serve, and those Birds visiting horror on my lawn. They kept coming back, kept making it worse. They kept messing with my expectations.

I’ve done a lot of work to neutralize my native perfectionism over the years. In learning to let go some sort of ideal, highest and best way to steward my journey, I’m growing my ability to deal with fundamental disappointments - I can’t realize the visions in my head exactly as I imagine; things just refuse to turn out neat and tidy; The best stuff doesn’t stick around forever.

Life does its dynamic thing.

Over and over, the terrible supplants the wonderful. But it’s also true that beautiful things can emerge to overcome the mess. As much as I can get distressed by the ongoing affinity of horror and humor, tragedy and delight, it’s all always in motion, anyway. It’s helpful to consider the dynamics. Something changes every single day.

I’m starting to think there might actually be something of magic in the bumpy ride, though it’s not what I would order up for myself or my community if I was in charge. I over anticipate. I try to curate the best possible, and then, I mess things up. Still, more often than not, I end up with a surprising plate of possibility.

The attack crows hit my neighbors’ yard with far more viciousness than mine (at least so far…I’ve been told those birds know when I’m talking about them). And yet, where the parking strip once just had plain old green stuff, there’s now a garden of silver pinwheels - What Magic?