Yesterday morning I was heading downstairs to go out for a run when something on the radio made me pause. The Academic Minute, John Lurz from Tufts talking about the physicality of books– what Proust’s margin notes and paste-ons (prescursors to Post-its, surely) convey in a tangible, physical way about the act, his act, of recording memory, something your Kindle or iPad lack. You close them, pfff! All gone.
I’ve mentioned I worked on memory and recollection in my academic life, and this would have been right up my alley. Still is.
The Minute ended and the sonorous Ray Graf was coming on with the wrap up of the show, and I was still digesting the Proust metaphor. Something caught my eye out the southwest window. Splash of blue in the bare oak tree: male bluebird. Oh beauty. Then I heard Graf intoning the motto of the show: Never Fear Change. An exhortation. Mesmerized by the male bluebird I felt the hairs go up. Then I saw the female. Books, bluebirds, change, trifecta.
Knew it was a sign. Of what, dunno for sure. But this has message written all over it, in my world. Books. Their presence, their tangible beauty, the weight– literal– of the words on the page. Bluebirds, all too rare. I always catch my breath when I see them, that blue!! Change– well, name an area of my life and there’s change, much of it wrenching. Never fear it– right.
Of course my phone was downstairs across the house so no visual record of the Never Fear Change bluebirds…but here is one of my nesting pairs– could be the same!– a few days ago tucking into their weathered house, papa on the roof, watching. 
So, what? Talking about it today with a friend, in simple terms it is a privilege living in a place where we have unfettered access to nature, its beauty, and the wisdom it holds for us. We just have to pay attention. And paying attention means clearing space, in our heads as well as in our lives, turning off the devices and the what not. Stopping in our tracks, even.
The further I go, the less, I realize, I know. Maybe that is the lesson. Appreciate the moment in all its amazingness, and just, move on, in a space of grace.