In The Dark Heart of Winter

By Fahrenheit standards, the temperature is hovering around zero today. In the first blush of dawn I opened the blinds in a southeast facing window and stared out into the grey and pink tinted sky.

Across the street there is an enormous maple tree. It towers above the two story home next to it, its branches completely bare at this time of year. Something caught my gaze at the very top of this tree. Clinging to a thin twig jutting up from the highest branch was, of all things, a robin! It's the dark heart of the northeast winter, mid January and the coldest day of the winter so far.

I'd have thought all of its kind were basking in an orange grove somewhere down south about now, but there it was, a brown and orange ball of feathers, attached to this precarious perch that is swaying in the icy breeze...amazing.

I am humbled (shamed a bit,really) and inspired by the example of this small creature, weathering adversity in the only way he can, stalwart against the difficult situation he finds himself in and doing his best just to survive. Thus does nature impart another lesson to me.