January 2, 2012
Greetings from the tips of my wings,
I have this list. I
have been carrying it around for a month or so, adding things and scratching
things off. I left it in a pocket and
couldn’t find it for a few days but it doesn’t matter. It is under my skin.
Murmuration.
Last
week I saw clouds of starlings, swarming back and forth, creating shapes in the
sky. Sweeping across the road out over a
field, doubling back and forming dark waves, then spreading out almost
invisible in the grey sky then reforming in dark living pools over me.
You’ve seen this phenomenon, I hope, somewhere in the sky
around you. It is one of those events
for which the word ‘awesome’ was originally created, before surfers kidnapped it
and made it as common as Kleenex. When
you see it for the first time you are amazed and perhaps frightened and
then….inspired.
Ornithologists might explain this swarming in dry bird
words, but I like to think the starlings do it for a far more poetic reason. You think so too, because when you see it,
you want to join them.
A
flock of starlings is a murmuration, a word I love rolling around in my mouth. Makes me smile to have a word so unusual to
describe something so awesome.
I think that starlings swarm and swirl and make shapes in
the sky because it’s what they do when they have a reason to celebrate. Like when you hear Sly and The Family Stone play
‘Thank You Falletinme Be Mice Elf’ and you either dance or explode.
When you are brimming with whatever is inside you and
something pushes you over the edge into doing what you absolutely must do, must
express, must say because it is the natural outlet for who you are, possibly
who you are when you are at your best.
I have a list in one of my pockets that starts with ‘What I
am doing when I’m at my best.’ It is
something I have circled back to again and again, and as the year closed I
started the list once more. One of the things
on that list is ‘Celebrating’.
A few of you might be tempted to roll your eyes here. Might seem a little superficial to you at
first glance. But, any of us probably
feel at our best when we are celebrating.
Having a reason to celebrate and doing something about it. Not just making a cake or decorating with
balloons, or putting on party hats and throwing confetti, although I’m in favor
of any activity that involves cake. Celebrating
in the traditional sense is just one part.
There is more waiting to be discovered.
When we are children and everything is awesome we are inspired
to celebrate more often. That wears off;
it’s not sustainable as adults. Life is
hard. There are taxes to pay and stains
to wash and people to correct. We have
serious responsibilities and it is frivolous to bounce all over creation like
life is one big birthday party. Right?
Every one of us is given gifts, and the tools to use them in
some way. We are put here for reasons we
don’t always understand, but I think we come closest to knowing when we find
ourselves where we are at our best.
So, when do you feel you are at your best; when you are
complaining about how hard things are, or when you celebrate a moment that
elevates your heart rate and your smile can barely keep from turning into
laughter? So, pretend you get to choose:
how do you want to spend your day today?
Perhaps not every moment inspires celebration, but the
further apart those moments are, the more your life can feel like someone
else’s ‘To Do’ list. And we choose, no
matter what your day is like, what we celebrate.
The other great lesson from the starlings is that when we
celebrate, and really express it, the joy becomes contagious, it is fluid and
natural and overwhelming and soon you find others around you pick up on it, and
swarm and swirl with you. That’s one of
the moments when I feel I am at my best.
So here is what it is: first, I am challenged to really look
at what I do in each day, and then push myself into places where I am doing
what is the best expression of my gifts and my passions. To live where I am at my best.
And on that list is to Celebrate. To find the moments that are valuable and
important, those that I decided, not the calendar, not Hallmark, and hold them
up and laugh or sing or eat a piece of cake, find a way of marking the moment. And share it.
I am looking over the leading edge of this year, thinking of
how I would make this calendar better than the last, this chunk of days more
satisfying, challenging, fulfilling. I am determined to shape what I do
intentionally, not let the days accumulate around me like lint. I will figure out where I am at my best, and
be there. It starts with this list.
Among other things on the list of ‘… at my best’ is when I
am writing to you each Monday. I want to
thank you for that privilege. I hope it
gives you as much pleasure as it brings me.
Happy New Year.
Hope this finds you swarming,
David
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