The #1 Best Life Hack, Ever

“All my inspiration comes from life. That’s how it never stops”
~ Marina Abramovic

March 5 was my birthday. Themes run in my life like love letters from the Universe, saying look here, notice….get it. I’d been smacked three weeks earlier with the thought of found poems in life. Smacked with the idea there’s magic in moments and fragments we see that grow bigger inside us, encapsulating memories, connections, emotions, beauty. Presence being our one ‘active’ requirement. (Read the magic here and here)

Now, the confession I couldn’t tell anyone. By the time I wrote that blog on my birthday, I was several weeks into a brutal allergy season. My entire body felt miserable. I wanted breath, sleep, ease somewhere. And I’d hit a wall with work. I was lost in “I can’t do this. I can’t create my vision. I can’t write this book. I can’t reach people (read, help people).”  I was ready to give up. 

Then, standing at my kitchen window, I saw eight robins encircling the water tray in the yard. They dipped in a swoop, and drank. Over and over, dipped and drank. Some would call this ordinary. For me it was extraordinary. Because in my twenty-five year relationship with Santa Fe, I’d never seen a robin. Not even with multiple watering and feeding stations. 

I was overjoyed. A flood of memories streamed through. Without trying or thinking about it, I smiled, and kept smiling. I was crazy overjoyed when the gang returned later, drank long minutes more. This was no coincidence. I looked up the meaning for robins: Renewal. New Vision. New Starts.

And I thought, my gosh, that’s what I do when I bump up against I can’t, this is hard, I don’t know what next. I find a new way of seeing. Every time.

That day I paused. I saw where I was, and though it wasn’t where I desired, yet, it wasn’t time to give up, either.

Then, as if the Universe didn’t want me to forget….2 weeks later, with riotous birdsong all around as I took an early morning walk, I heard a single voice above me in a tree on a strangely quiet block. I looked up. A robin. And a half block up, another single robin in a tree, singing.

I have patience today for the new Vision to coalesce. It feels right. It’s easier to talk myself thru brain cramps.

And I invite You….

Each time you bump up against those hard moments, find a new way of seeing. I promise, it’s the  #1 best life hack, ever.

And go out, watch a robin. How it goes step-step-step-pause, hop-hop-hop-pause. It doesn’t take 10 steps in a row. It’s takes a pause. We can, too. Call it a deep breath.

“There is only one way to see things, until someone shows us how
to look at them with different eyes.”
~ Pablo Picasso

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s life.

Photo of Robin: Jongsun Lee

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