All I need to know of life I learn in my backyard.
This morning I watched as the daddy cardinal came to the feeder, but stopped to chirp at me first from the bush close by. I told him I’d just filled it, and he swooped right in. The feeder is on a pole, but alongside a hydrangea that is overgrown from lack of a spring trim, and now, heavy with rain, covers the feeder with it’s soft leafy growth. A second later, a hummingbird swoops in behind him, stopping short when she realizes this is not her favorite restaurant, then buzzes over to the nectar-filled station that’s the hummingbird hangout. Perhaps she is one of the young, first flight out on her own. Perhaps last month she was only an egg.
The sky is a blank sheet of paper, where answers come by with the clouds. These are more in response to questions of the heart, questions of the soul. Simple in their complexity and range.
Sometimes a book is needed as a necessary accessory to the lessons learned out there. But it is only an extension, for the air of freedom I breathe and the natural chirps and hums of living things around me are the space, and that is the most essential of all.
Yes, a laptop would make the classroom complete, I suppose; to be able to go beyond in my studies. To strive for and achieve the ultimate degree. To say I have lived and learned.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology