oh my head

Coming off Fern Street and down Date, I heard the tweet of a hummingbird above. I stopped and looked up and there wasn’t a hummingbird in sight – little magicians, here and gone. There was, though, a small hawk sitting among bare branches about 10 feet up. I said out loud, “Oh my head,” which is an exclamation of wonder and, sometimes, exasperation and ouch, which I learned from a couple of slightly-damaged, lovely, life-living young women at North Reading High School back in Massachusetts a couple of lifetimes ago. For me it’s generally wonder. Anyway, between the stopping and the perhaps unusual to its keen ears comment, the hawk lifted off and flew across the street to the next landing place. Life in the big city.

Yesterday, toward the end of the walk, this time off Fern onto Birch, I walked past a young man, his hair pulled back in a short pony tail and his face grown over with a beard, loading a large box of ‘Huggies’ into the back of a Prius. A few moments later a very small white feather floated down just before me to the sidewalk.

Walking on the knees and soles of feet and hips my parents gave me – Win and Irene. Seeing with eyes I first opened in New Bedford, Massachusetts in Saint Luke’s Hospital just over 74 years ago. Still blessed with all that stuff -including reading glasses to type this – and I get to bring myself nearly entirely to these morning walks, because cool stuff happens.

Yesterday I was thinking about abundance when the walk began, and at its conclusion I walked into Starbucks and ordered a pound of Italian Roast, ground for a drip paper filter, please, and my sort-of-new-pal Daniel took my order and ground the coffee, and when I went to hand him a $20 he waved me off and said it was taken care of. I asked, “Did you have to pay for this?” and he answered, “I wouldn’t buy you anything.”

Cool, huh? Oh my head..