Subject: [Tweeters] Fill Tuesday
Date: May 10 13:11:38 2011
From: Connie Sidles - constancesidles at gmail.com


Hey tweets, another gray day, when the light is dim and birding in
absentia seems more fun than slogging around in the cold of reality.
Luckily, I began this day by reading a terrific interview with Stephen
Hawkings in New York Times Science Times. The interview was
accompanied by a photo of Dr. Hawkings, who is unbelievably disabled
by his progressive disease. All he has left anymore is control over a
cheek muscle. Using this one muscle, he painfully twitches messages
onto his computer, which translates his words into mechanical speech.
The interview was mostly conducted in writing, for obvious reasons,
and took days.

One of the questions was: Given all you've experienced, what words
would you offer someone who has been diagnosed with a serious illness,
perhaps A.L.S.?

Hawkings answered: My advice to other disabled people would be,
concentrate on things your disability doesn't prevent you doing well,
and don't regret the things it interferes with. Don't be disabled in
spirit, as well as physically.

I realized I have missed the spring spirit this year, that
exhilaration when joy bubbles up as the sun rises and birds start to
sing. I have missed the can't-wait feeling of anticipation that each
new arrival brings from the south, the affirmation of life ongoing, of
nature resilient, of a spiritual force greater and more long-lasting
than ourselves. I have let myself become disabled in spirit. I needed
a kick in the pants, and Dr. Hawkings supplied it.

With his words echoing in my mind, I hustled down to the Fill with a
renewed feeling of gratitude for the beauty that exists all around us,
but most particularly at my favorite place on earth. Gray skies? Who
cares when a tiny glob of sunlight glows in the heart of a green bush,
and you realize you're looking straight into the shoe-button eyes of a
Wilson's Warbler? Cold breeze? How can that matter when you hear the
sweet song of a Yellow Warbler floating on that very wind, drawing you
to the warbler bush at the Reading Rocks, where - wonder of wonders -
the sunniest of all the birds has thrown back his head as his song
peals forth? Gloom and doom cannot stand against the sweet symphony of
mahogany/red/beige/black that is a Cinnamon Teal at his finest. Or the
comic sight of three Solitary Sandpipers clustered together at the
south end of Shoveler's Pond, nipping and glaring at each other
because hello! *Solitary* Sandpipers are supposed to be solitary. Or
the stately progress of a male Blue-winged Teal, who apparently
emerged from some other dimension because he wasn't there on the pond
when I first looked, and nothing flew in while I was there.

The wildflowers are blooming in Yesler Swamp, the Wood Ducks are
outrageous, Great Blue Herons are everywhere, and sunlight fills my
soul. I wish you the same. - Connie, Seattle

constancesidles at gmail.com
www.constancypress.com
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