Birds, Words, & Inspiration

Far From Fearless

Seventeen years ago, I spent three entire days asleep in a stranger's tiny and cold flat in Healesville, Australia. I slept because I was jet lagged, I couldn't get warm, and because I was more scared and homesick than I had ever imagined was possible.

I had flown 13 hours across the ocean, excited to work at a show with birds I had never seen, to be welcomed into a new job and find new friends, only to discover that my host was having some sort of emotional breakdown and had decided she didn't want me in her house. So, I was reluctantly shuttled into someone else's home who didn't want me there just a little less.

They had only agreed to house me if I would split the utilities and take my turn at cooking and cleaning during the four months I was scheduled to stay. (Back home, the keeper I was swapping jobs with was an American and staying at my apartment for free.) This was an unexpected turn, but reasonable. The fact that I was living with a man who had cheated on his wife a few months ago (a soon-to-be-coworker of mine) and now shared this home with that mistress, was rather less reasonable. I had landed in the middle of a foreign land and a horribly familiar drama.

I wanted to go home, desperately. The food tasted wrong, the toilet paper smelled like perfume, and the unfamiliar bird sounds put me on edge, but not as much as the way the mistress of my new house eyed me suspiciously. I had been left with a car, but had no idea how to drive on the left side of the road, or where to get groceries, and what the hell the difference was between petrol and gas. I had no business being there and I knew it.

I called home to my boss who told me to change my flight and come back to Florida if that was what I wanted to do. He understood. I was relieved.

I slept away one more day and dreamed that my grey parrot, Ty, flew across the ocean, through the fern forests and landed on my window sill. I woke in the late afternoon, startled by a riot of sulfur-crested cockatoos outside my window.

My grey wasn't with me. I was still homesick, still scared, still cold, but as I threw my legs over the side of the bed, I realized that if I went home, I might regret it for the rest of my life. Nothing I had done so far had been as frightening as this, but all of the most wonderful things in my life had started with risk and fear, and were then followed by a determination to do them anyway. Why would this be any different?

The first month was hard, but it got easier and I stayed almost five months. I successfully trained and hunted with a brown goshawk. I ran amok in the bush with her, discovering new things every day. I helped release rehabilitated wedge-tailed eagles, trained wild fairy wrens to take mealworms from my fingers, and spent one dark and spooky midnight with an aboriginal man who performed a grounding ceremony on me. I had adventures I couldn't have imagined. And I almost went home.

Starting this "newsletter" made me think of this time and so many similar ones. I wonder who the hell I am to think I have inspiration and advice worth sharing. I wonder if I'm getting in way deeper than I should. Will I be able to keep it up? Will no one read? Will everyone hate what I have to say? Am I going to sound like a pompous ass?

Who cares? I've failed at a lot of things. Sometimes to disastrous effect, but the journey to get to failure or success was always full of wonder.

All the most wonderful things in my life started with risk and fear.

In fact, whenever the fear spikes in my chest, and I think to myself, man this is risky... you might break your heart, break a bone, end your career... my inner girlfriends replies, "Well, I guess we're doing it then, aren't we?" Yes, yes we are.

I hope I can give you some good reasons to start with risk and fear as well. Let's see where it takes us, shall we?! I'm very grateful that you're choosing to come with me.

xxR