Rule 21: Appreciate that bird that LOUDLY whistles before 7 AM.

For about 3 weeks now, there has been a bird outside our window that begins incessantly chirping between 6:30 & 6:40 AM. It’s not a cute fluttering type chirping either. It’s a long loud low-pitched chirp. I didn’t realize until this morning that it is most likely a mating call.

When the bird first arrived a few weeks ago, it annoyed, perturbed, and shocked the shit out of me. Waking up to the loud chirping the first time, I thought about running outside and firing off my prop gun just to scare it away. I didn’t do that. Though it would have probably made for an incredibly funny story, it might have also scared the absolute shit out of my neighbors or garnered a visit from the authorities. I decided in everyone’s best interest to leave my fake firearm stowed away where it belongs. Why do I have a prop gun? That’s a story for another time….(hint: I’m an actor and have been doing theater for a long time.)

A bird chirping in the morning may seem sort of ordinary, or not worth writing about, but I am ascribing meaning to it:

1. He arrived at or around the start of the New Year.
2. I had made a resolution around that time to start getting into a better sleep routine, which includes getting up early in the morning everyday.
3. Early for me means before 8 a.m., if you’re wondering.
4. I have not been perfect at this goal, and this damn bird has always woken me up when I have planned to sleep in.
5. It might sound “new age-y”, but I’ve come to view him as the Universe’s way of telling me to stick with it. Ugh. Thanks, Universe….

So, why am I just now writing about him today?

1. I have thought about writing him into one of my rules before, but then took a shower and forgot about him.
2. I really wanted to sleep in today, and he really wanted me to wake up. I mean, this morning his chirping was super duper shrill.
3. I think this morning he may have found the mate he was looking for.

This morning at around 6:55 or 7, after trying to cover my ears for awhile, I got a false glimmer of hope that he would simply shut up. His long deep shrill chirping was replaced my a lighter higher long chirping. I automatically assumed it was a female bird. I sort of shook my head in disdain and thought, great now there’s two of them.

Once I willed myself out of bed, and got around to moving, I realized that I had also willfully ignored the fact that as a human I tend to ascribe meaning where many times there is none. Me viewing this bird as somehow coming to my window to chirp to help encourage me along to stay on my path toward achieving my goals is in fact pretty damn self-centered.

Maybe the trees outside simply seemed like a good place for him to make “cat calls” at a possible mate. Maybe nothing in nature has anything to do with me at all. Maybe I am just a visitor here who is privileged enough to witness the awesome and terrifying miracle that is birds and trees and the ocean and nature in general. Maybe I’m not the center of the damn universe. Maybe I’m just the center of my own universe in my head. And, sometimes, that’s okay. For me, I just have to remember the actual reality is different from the reality I can create in my own brain.

So, I’m not just appreciative to that bird for the perceived meaning I personally ascribed to him, but also for the little bit of humility he gives to me as well.