"The Ordinary."
On watching a robin.
DECEMBER 7—The American robin is a common bird—ubiquitous in suburban neighborhoods across the country. So ordinary are they, one almost fails to see them.
All russet and raw umber, I watched one morning as several robins drank serenely from a shallow pool at the frozen edge of a beaver pond. Others perched nearby on naked autumn branches, eating crimson berries still clinging in clusters to the delicate filigree. These were robins as rarely observed. Robins in a robin world.
The common and mundane—the ordinary—are wondrous when truly seen. How much, I wondered upon seeing the robins, have I missed in life? What have I failed to see?
To what extent, I am not the first to ask or ponder, might a failure to see and appreciate the world and those around us be implicated in the disappearance of much that is good and beautiful?
Love requires tending. I write this to remind myself.
I've had similar thoughts while marveling at the spectacular beauty of the cardinal family that has made a home in my front yard.