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You have a notion you just can’t shake.  An idea/problem/reoccurring issue that rides around with you.  Perched there on your shoulder, you see it from the corner of your eye.

If you would turn and face it full on you would know it for what it is, realize what it is trying to tell you.  You would hear the call, see the gift.  But you don’t, you’re still too unsure of the rising up it will ask you to do, or afraid that if it notices you reaching for it, it will take flight and disappear altogether.

So you appreciate that it is there.  It is a small, ironic comfort to you.  Prompting you to think of the things you see yourself doing in your unlived life.  So you do not usher it away.  Instead you put your head down and graze, not yet committed to the new and not yet done with the old, further contemplating the ending of things and wondering about the beginning of others.

During a walk last week, I was marveling that I could use the pasture trails due to lack of snow.  I was mulling over how small the flock is, how simple the winter chores are, how few guardian dogs are here and how many Kelpies, and how far off course this winter felt.  There have been changes in my day to day work load; changes that eased themselves in over the course of a years time rather than arriving all at once.  As I walked and thought of what my day was shaping up to be I caught myself wondering … am I even in agriculture anymore?

Maybe I never was.

This is the bird on my shoulder.