Little Bird

Sketch a day - day 50/365

I ran today. On my warm-down walk I stopped to look at this view. I never get bored of looking at this bit of the canal. Boats and pylons and a house and a jumble of trees with so many colours and strange shapes emerging. I have tried drawing it over and over. It always alludes me. Never mind. One day…

My favourite thing about this view is the birds. There are always birds sitting on the pylon wires. Sometimes there are so many they look like notation across a giant musical score in the sky. Today there was just one little bird. Something glorious about it. Something inspiring. A languid insolent refusal. A total commitment to the tiny space it took up. Sitting. Watching. Unmoved. That little bird doesn't see itself as little at all. It knows that within itself are multitudes of possibility. All the more powerful because so many forget that it's there.

I walked home thinking I was glad to think all of these thoughts on a day when world politics is finally, frighteningly upended and the fear that I can do nothing creeps in and in and in.

That little bird said, no.

It said start small. Be brave. Small is powerful.