Ears

Seasons are changing. Winter is melting slowly into a beautiful Spring and as I walk around campus, I’m beginning to notice the little birds that poke little heads out of the shrubs covered in chewed gum and cigarette butts. They’re cuteness and lack of a definitive self-awareness makes me envy them all the more. Why can’t I be as careless as a shrub bird?

Like all birds, they aren’t exclusive to the shrubs they choose to inhabit. Between classes, I see them everywhere on campus: Sitting on benches, twittering among themselves, in the cafeteria, moving through lines in various cutoff jeans and miniskirts, and even in the backs of classrooms, squawking and chirping all throughout lectures and tests. Every bird is the same, and every bird is completely oblivious of the future—it’s that lack of definitive self-awareness.

It’s hard to not feel sorry for the little creatures, living each moment as it comes along, without any stray glances, backward or otherwise. I sit and plan and prepare for the next winter, carefully planning the best way to get through the cold months, but those birds don’t care for that. It’ll get cold (as it always does), and they will pick up and fly south (like they always do).

I was a shrub bird last weekend. I even dressed the part, donning hair dye, faux rabbit ears and enough shots to shake the care out of my hair and eyes. Ashley joined me, and as we twittered back and forth, we stepped out of our tired lives for enough time to fully appreciate what we had. It was great fun, living the guilt free life of a bird, but as our cares warmed up, we flew north again to be with our old lives where we truly felt safe.