the cage match
in the beginning of may, i moved into a very unique living situation - five bedrooms, two bathrooms, nine roommates (with a baby on the way) and a parakeet named keira. it has been a delight living here thus far. no major hitches yet. i am just waiting for someone to break and get into a yell fest with another one of the roommates, and knowing us, it would probably be caitie and i!we live with this crazy little bird, keira. i first met keira in matt and stephanie's midtown apartment. back then, this bird was shy, she was a bit mysterious and everybody was fighting for her attention. you could call to keira over and over again, but she would simply look at you and choose whether or not she was going to respond. she was a snob of sorts, really.
living on the 22nd floor of a high rise apartment building, keira never saw wild birds fly outside of her window. of course all that changed when we moved here to harlem. the first morning that we were in our new apartment, keira was going insane. she would not stop flying in circles around the room, moving from one window to the next, squawking at the birds flying by, communicating in the same birdy language that only birds know how to fully understand. this bird has developed a whole new personality. even when you don't want her to come, she will get right into your face or fly right into cereal bowls and water glasses. none of the roommates, including keira's own mother, know what to do with her if there really is anything we can do to contain this bird.
as i sat in our kitchen eating my morning bowl of cereal, i watched keira perched in the window, calling out to her peers. it was a call of desperation and desire. i wondered how horrible it would be to have wings and a beak and like-minded instincts as all of the other birds, and still be unable to fully do anything about it. even so, if we let keira free to roam the skies, it is most likely that she would get mauled by another bird bigger and stronger than she is.
keira's new found confidence is quite entertaining. yet it seems that the shock of discovering that she is not the only bird in this world has made these four walls too small for keira to be content, so much so that it is driving her to insanity.
in like manner, i find myself surrouned by people who love art and music and creativity. like-minded people who are doing whatever it takes to do whatever it is they love to do and maybe even make a living doing it. for a long time i felt a bit out of place, as if my dreams were bigger than those i grew up around. but it wasn't long after i left home that i came across others who, like me, have heaps of passion and energy in their hearts to create and do great things with their lives. a lot of ambition with not enough experience has been my story thus far, and i want more than anything to change this. yet i am so afraid that i am like little keira, that if i were to really try and fly with the free birds, i would only find myself getting crushed in the end. is the fight going to be worth the possibility of failure and even great pain? and even so, do i have it in me to fight at all? because in all honesty, the thought of fighting just makes me wanna crawl back into bed and hide underneath the covers.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home