Today’s Morning Buzz is brought to you by Dr. Sarah Story, Executive Director of the Jefferson County, CO Public Health Department. Connect with Sarah on LinkedIn, Medium, or Instagram.
- What I’m eating: Everything. I’m in the last 40 days (EEK!) of training for a marathon and I can’t stop eating. I’ve rediscovered my love of white bread. I’m eating baked potatoes like we are about to have a famine. It’s no wonder I’m the only person on earth to gain weight while running dozens of miles every week.
- What I’m listening to: Like everyone else on this planet, “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” by Chappell Roan. I wish I was one of those cool people who could say, “Yeah I’ve loved her for years” but better to love late than never love at all. I don’t have much in common with Chappell, but something about her is so universally connecting and familiar. She makes me feel less alone, which I am assuming is a function of her genius and part of her appeal.
- What I’m watching: My word count. I was last-month-years-old when I learned that these Morning Buzzes are supposed to be 400-800 words! My last essay was… gulp, wait for it… 3,800. Soooo, it’s time to tighten it up.
A short list of things you’d never catch me doing in a billion, zillion years (or so I thought):
- Wear flip flops anywhere aside from a European hostel shower
- Put mayonnaise in a lasagna recipe
- Run behind a mangy coyote for half a mile instead of running away in the opposite direction like a normal person
- Buy a Rick Steves travel guide
- Show any level of excitement over a damn bird
Well, aside from the first unbreakable cardinal sin, I have now done all of these things. In my defense, the lasagna recipe is courtesy of the late, great George Michael who apparently relayed his “special” recipe to Teen Beat magazine long ago. And further in my defense, Rick Steves is lowkey great. He donates profits regularly to human rights causes and has the type of awe and wonder that is a perfect antidote to our cynical world.
It’s the birding that’s really out of left field for me. I don’t know how it happened, but at some point I woke up to the fact that birds are amazing. I think it’s a consequence of my office windows, which conveniently overlook a giant tree where some massive beast-bird and his/her family were settled for a while. I’ve taken to scheduling 5-minute silence periods throughout the day. I add them to my planner as if they are an appointment. I don’t listen to meditation, I don’t practice box breathing or gratitude. I literally just set a timer on my watch and stare out the window. And through these staring sessions, I seemed to have discovered the existence of these strange, beautiful tiny flying dinosaurs just LIVING all around us. Forty-three years on this earth, and it felt like my first day here.
So, like any good elder-millennial, I downloaded the Merlin Bird App and started obsessively trying to get photos of birds. I’m the weirdo making her dog “shush” so we can creep up on a duck at the park and snap a pic. I’m the one stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to capture a pigeon, of all things. I’m the person who got extra excited about booking a trip overseas for my marathon because it meant I could add some German birds to my life list!
It’s been a wild season in Public Health here on the Front Range of the Rockies. Wildfires, rabies, rats, and budget cuts — that about sums up the last 30 days. It can bring a girl down, and no amount of listening to “Espresso” on repeat can help. Looking to birds, practicing noticing, being silent… these creatures have something to teach us about how to fly through our own lives.
- Don’t mistake brilliance for bravery. So many times I’ve spied a gorgeous, flashy, bedazzled bird only to realize, thanks to Merlin, that it’s super common and ordinary. It’s also ALWAYS a man-bird. Although these stunning displays of the color palette are nice to look at, they are almost always flying or pecking alone. The utilitarian birds, the ladybirds, are all up in the reeds tending to the flock, building the nests, sitting on the eggs or whatever. I can strive to be dependable and consistent, even if my favorite color is beige right now.
- Why not both worms? One day I was sitting on the grass watching a common house finch hunt the wet grass for worms. I noticed her noticing two squiggly worms and cocking her head back and forth. Finally, she quickly nabbed both worms in her mouth and hopped away. QUEEN. Some choices are false choices — will we be direct, or will we be kind? Can we believe in God or believe in science? Can we go to church or vote for Kamala? Can we have a career, or can we have a family? Why not both worms? I don’t have to choose. I can have all of it.
- Let the current take you. I know there is probably more to bird migration and flying than my newbie brain can take in, but I’m inspired by the grace of birds in seemingly insurmountable conditions. Birds don’t look like they are struggling. They don’t thrash against the changes in the air. Ducks may be furiously paddling underneath the water but their above-water countenance is calm and poised. Calm birds calm us, in turn. May we all be that calming bird in the chaos of our world. May we be the one others look to for reassurance that everything is going to be OK… that it will be more than OK, it will be beautiful.
I’m not yet to the point where I’ve purchased binoculars. The last time I bought binoculars was the NSYNC tour at the Rose Bowl, in the year 1999, where Sisqó opened for the boys. To this day I can’t remember whether Sisqó has a song other than “Thong Song.” What I do know now that I didn’t know 25 years ago, was that all those glorious California birds watching that show probably had the time of their lives, eating popcorn off the ground and circling the amphitheater waiting for someone to drop a hot dog. Maybe they were common seagulls, or boring pigeons. But in the world of birds, common doesn’t matter. And it doesn’t matter in our world either. We don’t have to be rare, once-in-a-lifetime finds to have a blast.
