Listening to My Surroundings

I was walking my dog yesterday when I heard them. Sandhill cranes, their distinctive trill high overhead. It’s a few weeks early for them to be migrating through already, but it’s been a scary dry, warm winter and everything is off.

So I stopped to listen and look up. It took a minute to find them, soaring in formation, so high above that they looked like little dots. The sound is unmistakable, but you have to be listening. 

There’s joy to be found in deliberate listening, and I’ve been trying to cultivate this sense of presence lately. It’s so easy to get distracted by devices and all the stuff that you can pump into your mind by plugging in ear buds, but I don’t like how it all takes me out of my surroundings and into another place that’s not here. I understand the draw of elsewhere, and sometimes it’s just what I want, like when I’m doing household chores or a long road trip.

But I’ve come to crave the feeling of being present. So I walk. I listen. I look. I stop and sit and take a deep breath. This, here, now is what it feels like to be alive.

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Video: I took this video last year, while I was skiing. Turn the volume up (and listen closely) and you’ll hear the cranes.

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