The story of a bird
I just drove along a road in my town that parallels a wide and shallow river. It winds through deciduous forests now depleted of their leaves, so you can see through the understory to the waters flowing downstream. It often feels like you move together: Whatever pulls the current southward over stones also pulls you down the road.
A few years ago, I was driving along the same river when I noticed cars swerving towards the shoulder. There was a large, dark object in the center yellow lines, and one by one, the cars half-circled around the obstruction, not paying it any attention other than to take the path of least resistance, to bypass, circumvent, to avoid, and continue on their way elsewhere.
As I got closer, I noticed the object was moving. It twisted and turned, shapeshifting between different forms until I could see it clearly: A bird. A large bird of prey, in fact. A red-tailed hawk, its wing bent and broken.
I pulled over. There didn’t seem to be another option to me at the time. My former partner and I slowly approached the hawk, and in its fear and distress, the bird managed to hop and flap out of the center line and to the road’s edge, where it collapsed, quivering from pain and exhaustion.
It was there that I sat vigil by its side for over an hour. I’d never been so close to such a beautiful creature of the clouds. It had rusty and soft feathers, and these dark, wide eyes I couldn’t help but stare into and notice the flicker of awareness in its gaze. The hawk observed me as I observed it, and yet there was something more. Something I might call consciousness. Something that felt more human than bird.
There are hundreds of new readers to this newsletter today—welcome. It’s wonderful to have you here. Truly.
I started with this story of a bird because I want to reintroduce myself in a way I usually don’t. If you are one of my students, attended a webinar, or read my bio, you’ll know the narrative I often tell: I grew up in a suburb outside of Boston, the youngest of three girls. I was a wannabe D1 soccer player and straight-A student at a competitive public school. When I was 16, I rerouted my life and decided to study abroad in Central America. Cue the life-pivot. My eyes were open.
With new awareness of the world, I began an off-the-beaten-path journey and bought a one-way ticket to Nepal for my gap year, before studying at Colorado College. I designed my own major called Creative Writing for Social Change. Published my writing in a well-known magazine. Led backpacking and climbing trips. Worked in a selective Admissions office. Became a college counselor. And then an art teacher. And then a founder, helping hundreds of students on their own uncommon paths.
What I often don’t tell is that for quite some time, I was the bird in the middle of the road.
To be honest, I’m not sure when my wing first got clipped. It might have been the childhood allergies and pneumonia that heaved my lungs. It might have been my first concussion when I was twelve, in the blackness of losing my consciousness, or the ACL tear the same year. It might have been the sixth concussion that kept me trapped in my freshman dorm room. Or the first day of my junior year, living amongst Aspen trees in the high peaks of Colorado, when I got a message that sent my life careening: They had found a tumor in my brain. It might have been the thirty times I lay flat on my back in a magnetic resonance machine, the vibrations making an image of inside of me. Or the surgery during the pandemic. Or the tumor gone but my body still sick as a dog. The blood tests and appointments. The doctors who said they couldn’t help. The lack of answers. The daily pain that made my teeth chatter. The invisible tick bite that brought me to my knees for three years.
To be chronically ill is to be swerved around. Looked at, but usually not seen.
The other day during one of our gap year webinars, a student asked a big question: What experience in your own journey gave you the most growth, and what's one you never want to repeat?
I answered as honestly as I could: More often than not, the hardest things have led to my greatest evolution. “We have such a beautiful world,” I said, “and it’s meant to be lived in.” That means taking risks. That means taking the road less traveled—or, what might be more true—it means stopping on the road to rescue a bird when no one else does.
What my illness has done is widen my aperture. I see more. I feel more. And what’s more important: I made it to the side of the road and found people to sit with me. In my search for healing, I’ve found that there’s another way to live life.
It was cold out the day I found the hawk. We shivered beside each other. I found myself pleading with it: Don’t move. You’ll hurt yourself. Stay still. Be patient. Help is coming. In other moments, we were just silent.
Help came. A hurt bird became a child swaddled in a blanket. A hurt bird was lovingly carried away. A hurt bird found its way to the only sanctuary in the state that takes red-tail hawks.
As far as I know, she’s flying again.
