Morning Birds

A surprising sleep through the night after a first day in Sydney walking some five miles, dinner at a water-side restaurant and catching up with my lovely hosts Margie and Paul. Now it’s morning and I’m on their back deck, remembering a quality of Australia mornings markedly different from San Francisco one and easily summed up in two words— morning birds. 

 

There is something about the sound of morning birds singing in the day that fills me with great happiness. A deep sense of this world as a most beautiful place and each day as an invitation to remember our place in it. I’m not the least bit interested in identifying their bird song and putting it on some birding list. Still, it’s only polite to know the names of creatures who sing to you and make you happy, so I will ask my hosts to help me identify the mynah, kookaburra, ibis and such. 

 

I’ve long ago let go of my fantasy to “get a house in the country” and am quite content to be in a city, especially where I am, a half block from Golden Gate Park. But the San Francisco morning birds are few and those I might hear mostly crows. So I dimly imagine someday—when the traveling and teaching and performing feel mostly done— relocating to a place where I can awaken to the birds and sit out on some deck or porch or bench in the yard and greet the day accompanied by their song. That would be most welcome.

 

Meanwhile, this sweet moment before I plunge into some four straight weeks of indoor teaching. Tweet, tweet.