Waking Bird

“What could touch me now? … what was I to myself, really, but a witness to any boldness I could muster, or any cowardice if it came to that, any giving up on heaven for the sake of dignity on earth?                                         - Annie Dillard

A self-consciousness has come over me of late. A gentle kind of self-consciousness, though. Lonely in tone and hazy-white in palette. It doesn’t twist or stab, humiliate or depress.

And I don’t feel pained by it so much as tinged with sadness.  Like a bold glass of red wine that has suddenly been muted by the introduction of stale, tepid water. Faucet water. Not chilled, sparkling water. Or brisk and bright water that is sharp and clear at the edges like it can sometimes be; the shocking kind of water that splashes over creek stones just before November’s first snow, or the piercing kind that seeps up around river ice in early March with spring’s first thaw. That kind of water thrills and cuts. It makes me feel alive and pointed. Like a dart - full of purpose and traveling fast.

I understand why cold water is healing.

But the kind of water I’m talking about today – the water that’s currently muting my bold cup of life – it’s the quiet kind, both introspective and still. Neither hot not cold – just room temperature and rather flat. A boring topography that muddles on. Or rambles on, feeling neither the determination of a steep ascent, nor the fear and joy of a sudden plunge. I’m surprised by its presence at the same time that I’m dulled by it. And quieted by it, as if in lullaby. It leaves me wanting to weave a shroud from the dome of the sky and wrap myself up in it – as if in twisted bed sheets, as if in a papery cocoon. In darker moods, I want to stitch a blanket of earth from the ground beneath me – heavy and dark, something weighted with minerals and elements that will reclaim me and render me invisible, at least for a little while.

It’s a form of surrender, I suppose. And I imagine that it only comes from fatigue. Or from exasperation with where I find myself today. But it scares me because it feels like defeat. Like shrugging my shoulders and walking away from the game; throwing in the cards and retreating to the corner. My tail isn’t tucked between my legs because it’s not shame that I feel so much as vexation coupled with lack of imagination or wherewithal about how to shake it up. But I do want to hide my nose in my fur, at least for a little while.

I’ll assume that it’s a merely a temporary phase like any other – a period of introspection, a moment to hibernate and store my reserves. A bear does not sleep all winter. And, like most weather patterns, these flat, low-lying clouds will shift and move on. The wind will carry them eastward and the overcast gray will be replaced with soft, cumulus clouds or bright, hot sun or snapping, electric thunderclouds. The dullness is probably as necessary as any other life cycle – big or small. Whether it be the pull of the tide, the waxing of the moon, day folding into night or night emerging, as it so predictably does, into day.

Thank god for day break. I love those first waking moments when the new day is yet timid. When the first bird blinks an eye, shakes its feathers and offers up a chirrup. I can feel the day’s energy gaining force just as an opera singer gathers her breath in a deep inhale, pushing her wind down into the folds of her core where it will tremble for just a moment - paused in a moment of anticipation. That’s day break. And then the earth tilts just one degree more and a ray of sunlight lifts a shoulder, unfurls a finger. The opera singer opens her mouth and releases a thread of sound – slowly at first, and gentle. It’s a slight, thin sound, like first light. Then she widens a valve somewhere in her throat or abdomen and we hear a richer, warmer sound. Just so, first light fills the belly of the valley, the stars fade, and the sun begins to heat. Ants come scurrying, tree shadows lean westward, a dog wakes, stretches and thumps his tail.

Each morning is a gift. Who am I today? How will I direct the ration of energies I was gifted with when I woke this morning? Need I yesterday’s self-consciousness? Yesterday’s pain? Does it serve?

Probably not. Actually, definitively not.

I’m coming into a new understanding that who I am, what I am, is really nothing other than a witness to what I do. I am not afraid to watch a movie or read a book. I am not nervous while quietly observing people streaming past me in a train station, or negotiating with one another at dinner parties. And I am not fearful for that other tenacious writer who doggedly submits her work; nor for the man who dares to try something new; nor for the child who finally finds the courage to speak up. Instead, I admire them. I applaud them. I’m invigorated by them.

So why not do the same? Why not cast aside these futile feelings of self-consciousness and speak aloud? Dance, if I want to. Or guffaw, holler, laugh. Throw my spear and travel fast. Fall down, get back up. Flap my arms, take wing, survey the landscape, sweep and then coast, landing eventually on a tree branch or telephone post, on a stretch of beach or in a meadow tilled with seed.

A waking bird is not pocked with self-consciousness, nor muted with worries of yesterday. A waking bird just bears witness. It blinks its eye, swivels its head, plumps its feathers and notes the rising sun. It might pause to sense the wind or to pry something loose from its breast with the point of its beak. And then it steps to the edge of its nest and takes flight…again.