a peek inside the fishbowl

Lakes are good for the soul.

What is it that makes them so peaceful and serene? A place where you can just sit and dwell, unhindered by both the rush and the tedium of everyday life?

I feel like I can stare out into that watery space for hours on end, the wind in my face and the sun on my back, thinking of nothing and everything all at once.

Dear friends, my brain is full. I am twitchy. My thoughts have been fragmented, fractured, and frankly, all over the place. That’s why I’m going into a self-imposed media detox for a few days.

I’m tired of feeling like a mental magpie. There have been times these past few weeks when I have felt my attention span withering away to almost nothing. I can’t do anything without  – HEY LOOK, SOMETHING SHINY!

And it’s getting worse.

So. I am making a proclamation. Next week (M-F) I will not be:

• working
• checking email
• poking around Facebook
• Twittering
• watching television or movies
• reading blogs or randomly surfing
• using my iPhone
• etc.

I need to restore some calm and enjoy some quality time with my family … and this is the best way of doing it.

So see ya later gators!

I wouldn’t call myself a birder per se. If I was a birder that would mean that I travel with long checklists and binoculars and own a dust-coloured vest with lots of little pockets and can tell the difference between a common redpoll and a hoary redpoll (but I can’t).

But I do like birds, and we spend a lot of time watching the characters in the backyard. Maybe this is why I’ve developed a bit of an ear for birdsong. I can recognize a hubbub when I hear one.

I could tell that something was up with Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal (this is how we refer to any cardinals we meet) so I grabbed my coffee and went for a walk around the backyard.

Our backyard is very much its own little world. Everything is incredibly overgrown right now and it is very shaded and cool there this time of the morning.

I felt like I was in a great big room surrounded by great thick living breathing walls.

I picked a small handful of black raspberries, thorns plucking at the sleeve of my thin jacket, and ate them all at once.  

My shoes were getting wet. The grass was still covered with dew. The hostas were heavy with beads of water. Great branches closed in overhead.  

I wandered among the green taking it all in, trying to still my mind, but that incessant chirping wasn’t letting up.

Then I saw the flash of red. Mr. Cardinal. I followed him with my eye and found the source of the desperate-sounding birdsong. Daddy was feeding his fledgling baby, and it was the little one who was doing all the fussing. 

Very cute, but hasn’t anyone told him about the neighborhood cats?