Attending to the Present

This time of year, one of my most favorite sounds is bird song. Each morning when I go walk my dog I get to hear their serenading. I’ve heard that you can hear birds better in the morning, not because they are louder, but because the world is quieter.

Fortunately for me, that means I can hear their song at any time if I just pause long enough, and silence the extraneous enough, to listen.

The irony of rush is that many of us spend so much time in it, begrudgingly, that we choose noise and rush in our spare time too. I complain that my children are loud, bemoan their constant commands of, “Alexa play music we like,” and get overstimulated by the constant busyness of my days. And yet, when given a quiet moment alone, I often turn to a podcast, send a voice message to a friend or call my mom. Of course there are numerous reasons I do such things—only in the silence do I have time and space to partake in these activities and to connect without interruption, but how much I of it is because my body feels uncomfortable with silence? Have I grown so accustomed to mental stimulation that without it I feel lost and uncomfortable? I don’t know.

What I do know is that I can intentionally choose  silence more. When doing the dishes I can just do the dishes, directing my mind to attend to the sensations in the present—the feel of the water, the sight of the residual food leaving the plates, even the midday sound of birds while they sing outside, clearly audible to me when I actively listen.

The other morning as I walked, I said, out loud, “thank you for your beautiful song” in appreciation to the melody the birds were bathing me in. And while I’m not arrogant enough to think they are singing for my enjoyment, I still appreciate them, and will use their song as a gentle reminder to return my mind to my body—here and now.