Appreciation

I got up very early this a.m. - one cat was messing with the other cat (okay, it's always Alex messing with Annie) and it woke me up and I let him out and then I felt wide awake and knew I had a lot to do this a.m. before getting on the road at about 11, so I thought why not just actually get up and make some coffee...

It was still dark out - which, at this time of the year in Spokane, you know that means I was up early. About 4:15 a.m., best to my recollection. Too dark to read the newspaper, what with the light bulb in the lamp by the couch burnt out and me without replacement bulbs...

So I worked by the light of the computer, and checked my favorite websites, and learned that Hillary Clinton was THE BOMB yesterday during hearings on the Hill (which, I did think she'd be a great SOS, but it's nice to have confirmation)...

...and then I heard them. The little birds, chirping right outside my window. We've fooled them, these little chicks. They think it's spring already. Silly birds. It's only getting up to 52 today...

They're the little chickadee birds - tiny, brown, hopping from branch to branch, every so often flying a few feet. They're not the most beautiful of birds, but they're happy, aren't they? Why else would they chirp like that?

And I think of my disappointment in Spokane yesterday - Spokane and its secrets - and then I wake up on a morning like today, and am grateful for all that this place has given me, including the independence to pursue my writing and the little chickadee birds chirping outside my window, and Annie (my angel cat) and Alex too (for as ornery as he can be)...

My frustration yesterday likely wasn't even fair, since the secret I lamented was a national secret, not a local one. And even when the secret is local, I don't know that I'm fair to Spokane, since all places have their secrets, I'm sure - and even if Spokane, percentage-wise, has more than average, it is not unique in concept. I think the slap in the face is not that there are secrets, or even that there are a lot of secrets, but that there are secrets in a town where I know the people keeping the secrets - not for the good of the community - and so there is the added feeling of betrayal by a friend... Once I watched a judge make a wrong ruling, and watched the judge know it was a wrong ruling, and knew the judge made the ruling not to help the law but to help the other side in a politically expedient sort of way... and I nearly moved the next week to some big, anonymous city where I wouldn't have to actually know the judge who so blatantly chose to hurt my client for reasons other than applying the correct law... so I wouldn't have to actually deal with the plummeting of my respect for that judge - whichever judge - when politics played its ugly role. If I don't know the judge, then I don't have to respect the judge - or lose that respect. When I know them, I have to deal with my disappointment in them. So that's less about Spokane and more about me, right?

And life is too short to police everything. (So I say this early a.m., as the chickadee birds chirp a song that asks me to enjoy the morning in its momentary perfection.) So I sip my coffee and listen to the sweet birds and then, because they remind me of St. Francis of Assisi (who I love, and who is gentle like them), I play the Gregorian chant music CD that I still have from the library. And Alex is back inside, but now he wants to go outside, because he is restless and can't decide where he wants to be, and so I let him back out. After all, I just want him to be happy... like the sweet little chickadees are...