Question: If you could be any animal, who would you be?
Depending on my mood, I answer either ‘kingfisher’ or ‘osprey.’ I want the relative security of predator status without the burden of hunting furry food. (I don’t like eating peaches with the skin on, but I sure miss Vishu’s baked salmon!) I want to wear feathers, and, like Craig Child wrote, “I want to lose my fingers and plans and I want to fly.” Plus, I could hang around at the beaver pond.
~
I am in Florida, laying on my back at the pool reading Church of the Wild by Victoria Loorz. I hear the sweet chirps of an osprey. I look up into the sky through the lenses of my purple sunglasses and see two ospreys and four vultures soaring effortlessly on a thermal. The current of warm air assists the birds in their climb just as the gentle heat of a Florida December helps me process the passing of another year.
One osprey chirps repeatedly and the other stays silent as they circle each other. They are backlit by glowing white clouds. After a few minutes, I can’t decide if they are flying or swimming. They move in the sky like fish in water. They soar higher and higher until they dissolve into the infinite sky-ocean.
I hear a final, faint chirp and my eyes return to my book about the sacred in nature.
Yes, I want to be an osprey.
