Feathered Bliss

Today was a crisp, clear, and deceivingly sunny Sunday. Though the sky was an overwhelming shade of azure and the sun was triumphantly beaming its glow everywhere, there was a palpable chill fiercely slapping against anything that dared to be outdoors. I have to admit, I love days like this- when the cold invigorates every pore, making the skin flush, the body shrivel up inside of itself for warmth, and the tips of your earlobes raw.

Due to my current level of anxiety, I decided to release some endorphins and take advantage of the Central Park Reservoir jogging path. I began to circle it as many times as my troubled thoughts were circling my mind. Lap after lap, the same concerns kept orbiting in my head, making my emotions dizzy. When one is in a confusing and painful situation, they tend to disregard whatever positive elements are in their realm. Just when my cyclical and cynical thoughts had reached a particularly redundant and wretched state- I saw the ducks.

Dozens and dozens of perfectly content birds bobbed around like buoys before me; they were still and happy staying in place. Here were these sublimely peaceful little avian creatures, able to fly, but content just wading in the freezing water. It amazed me that they were blissfully unaware of the urban chaos encompassing them as well as the man-made wilderness in which they were currently inhabiting. Some would quack at one another, some burrowed their heads into their bodies like tortoises, some seemed to be engaging in some sort of swim tag with their fellow ducks. This simple display of nature really grasped and inspired me.

Perhaps it was my particularly vulnerable state that allowed me to appreciate such a scene. Who knows what caused me to stop in my typically frenetic tracks and stare at those birds for as long as I did. Whatever the cause, I'm grateful for it. Without realizing it, those feathered folks encouraged me to lay my feathers on the tumultuous waves of thought in my mind, burrow my head into my body, and let all the anxieties take flight and migrate to another land.