priorities

Today was such a mix of emotions. For one, I had to wake up heinously early, which is never a good start. But then, as I walked down my front steps into the sunrise and saw the orange red flames spilling out through the morning thunderclouds onto the mountains in my backyard, I thought: this may not end up being such a bad day after all.

So I put some Bob Marley on and turned it up (along with my air conditioner at this brutally early juncture because it is HOT at 5am), picked out my favorite smile, and put it on for my drive to work.

I got to work and forgot to take my smile off because Marley was still stirrin it up in my head. When I finally got to my desk, the view out the window was incredible. Below the thick dark damp clouds the ground seemed cool to the touch, and the tops of the clouds screamed white reflectiveness at the indigo sky. It was brilliant; enough so that if you tried not to scream with delight, you would spin around, pump your legs, and throw your head and arms back in one fantastic Peanuts dance of ecstasy.

So my day was decidedly good.

Until my life collided into another's with disastrous consequences.

I was cruising along at quite a healthy clip in my fairly aerodynamic vehicle at the time. It happened just after lunchtime and I was thinking about some qweepish tasking that I had been volunteered for. I never even saw it happen. But somewhere in those last six miles, a small and quite beautiful hawk accelerated out of this world and into the next.

I would like to think that he never saw it coming. That his last thoughts were happy ones. I would like to think that he lived a full life, and had a chance to kiss his she-hawk and hawkids as he left for work that morning. Or if he lived an alternate lifestyle, that he and his hawk life partner had a chance to truly communicate their feelings for each other.

I'd like to think that all hawks always keep that kind of stuff up to speed. One would think we all would.

So this little entry is dedicated to the life and death of that beautiful little bird. May he and his loved ones be blessed.