I don’t know how long I can handle Barbie pink on my blog.

My confused owl is really a morning dove or at least I think she is. I found a nest of morning doves yesterday while having my coffee. We have history. In Mr. Dawson 8th grade class two would sit by my desk in a small cage while the teacher taught us the art of standing still. He’d put a pie plate the floor full of bird seed, show us how to sit like a statue and then someone would open the dove’s door and a bird would fly to him.

Mr. Dawson had photographs of himself covered in chickadees, sparrows. He claimed it was the art of trusting, of being in the same space over and over, of being more object than man and his students went off like disciples, their pie plates in hand, their pockets full of sunflowers. I seem to be, the only who noticed that the birds never sang, not one note. So I sat the three of us, near a cage in the absolute horror of it.

There is an art to being held, an art to belonging. I have met very few people who know how to do well. One who can be loved, fed and still produce song an another who can feed, and walk away.