Holding on to Hope

The last month has found me skating delicately around a very unhappy hip.   It’s hard to be my hopeful self when I’m in pain.  The scarcity of my optimism makes it all the easier for fear to take hold.  I don’t see the orthopedist until the 21st so it’s rather a long wait for some answers and - I hope - some relief.  I’m not patient in the best of circumstances and so I’ve really had to lean in to my calming meditation ways to keep it together these last few weeks.  It feels like life is frayed while I wait for some answers for my hip and try to hold off the fear that there will be no relief.  I’m grateful for days when the discomfort isn’t unbearable; when I can get in a 2-3 hour stretch of sitting-up sleep; when I feel a little more like my busy, capable self.  And I am holding on to the hope that there will be treatment that will work.

The Morning Call

I am an early-riser,  though the birds always beat me to the punch.  I hear their chirps as I come awake in the darkness.  By the time I’ve showered and poured my first cup of coffee, the bird song is a choir that makes my morning complete.  They are the soundtrack for my morning meditation and they make the early Spring days very nice. 

Thanks to my backyard bird feeder, I’ve had the chance to know exactly who is in the choir that sings my morning greeting.  There are blue birds and cardinals, robins, juncos, and gold finches.  Sometimes I hear a woodpecker in the morning, and there are other birds I’m learning to recognize.  The feeder is my way of thanking them for the morning chorus that makes my morning complete.