Headless Crows

Yesterday, our kids found the decapitated body of a crow in our yard. This is, apparently, a relatively common means of murder for owls, hawks, raccoons, and cats. It was a brutal reminder that nature can be gruesome, that life and death as a species on this planet is competitive and gnarly. Humans have removed ourselves from this competition on much of the planet and it is so easy to forget the potential brutality of existence. When it's 99 degrees outside, we simply turn on the air conditioning to alter our environment for our own comfort and the fully-stocked fridge is only a short distance from us in any given moment.

I've been frequently reflecting on the last couple years of existence, on how Covid has destroyed lots of people I love even though they didn't directly lose anyone. The isolation and loneliness has been acute and the trauma of the early days of not knowing the characteristics, lethality, or contagiousness of the virus permeated our very existence. That fear lingers in our blood, in the space we keep from one another, in our willingness and ability to return to some kind of new normal. We are not okay. Even those who denied the virus early on were dragged into the new reality we are all responsible for constructing as we heal, rebuild, and become acquainted with this new world.

As we have aged, it is the most kind and sensitive of my friends who seem weariest and I can't help but think it's because they have experienced the world their entire lives at increased magnitude. They were the loudest and most frequent criers as babies, upset by seemingly trite inconveniences and unable to calm themselves. They were the people silently crying at the beauty of music or being transformed by a particularly poignant sunset. They are the writers and poets and lovers amongst us who--while others toll away at productivity, numbers, and logistics--quietly construct the worlds, songs, and musings that remind the rest of us of our own humanity. They are the silent friends who watch more than they speak, who see us and the world in hues most are incapable of perceiving. They are delicate and they are broken (and that fragility is the opposite of weakness!) and I can't help but wonder: are you okay?

The weight of this burning world feels too heavy, the intensity of the bad news too frequent. And yet, the sun still rises in a multitude of colors and infinite kindnesses still pass between strangers choosing tomatoes in the grocery store. Words of encouragement and beauty do not go unheard and the first kiss of sun after a long dark night still feels like a silent urging to go forth with courage and veracity and fearlessness to a new day filled with the possibility of transformation and transcendence. 

There is still hope. Life abounds. There is for each cruel and savage act an equal if not greater abundance of the miraculous. You and I are here at the same time and even that is enough to laugh in the face of the onslaught of cynicism and pessimism; what are the odds, in a chaos-filled universe, that we would inconceivably find one another? It is a privilege and an honor to be so very fractured beside you, to traverse the dangers ahead with as much courage and humor as we can muster, to close our eyes and leap--filled to the brim with hope, faith, and grit--into the next unknown.