There is something meditative about the silence of single-occupancy hotel rooms. A top floor window facing out to a limitless sky, and the thoroughfare of clouds, some smokey gray, some salmon pink, a few orange-rimmed, and an occasional one with a silver lining even. Looking at their languid pace, slows you down, lulls your restless mind to a somewhat transient state of calm.
At a dizzying height as this, you might someday spot a peregrine falcon.
I have only once gazed into the face of this majestic raptor. With wings of steel, one of the fastest birds in nature, its eyes are always focused towards the horizon, its gaze severe.
Although perched right at the top of the ecological chain, a flawless machine crafted to survive, with talons that can any day dig into your flesh, uproot your spine, maybe take an eye, they possess a kind of austere beauty when you catch it in a moment of roosting.
They are usually found on tops of skyscrapers, on TV towers, now that a greater predator has systematically obliterated its natural habitat.
But wherever you might find one, look beyond their ability to hurt, and you see a melancholy warrior, bestowed with so much strength and destined with the weary task of always flying higher than others, that they can’t help but look down upon those who have less tenacious feathers, though who flutter barely above the ground.
They are rare and now endangered, so despite all their strength and lethality, an occasional sighting also invokes an almost maternal instinct to protect this beautiful mysterious bird. But a falcon, even when it is hurt will not fly into your arms, or accept sanctuary. It is against their innate nature. They will fly to an even greater height and nurse their wounds, with only the sun behind their back.
These birds are also champions of self-sufficiency because they believe that no matter who has hurt you, or how much they have hurt you, the business of healing is your own. And heal they do, and emerge stronger than before.
So if you ever spot a peregrine falcon, revel in its beauty; in the rare phenomenon of its existence because they are rare and they are beautiful.
If you have an intrepid (and foolhardy) soul like mine, maybe get even closer. But do not try to delude yourself into believing it needs your presence as a spectator, or a benefactor, or a potential counter-predator even.
Do not try to capture its memory with the banality of pixels constructed by HD camera phones. It will be gone before you can fish out your phone. Speed is the essence of their being. They are gone so fast, you will question if they were even there in the first place.
So if you ever spot a peregrine falcon, just pause, for a moment. A moment is all that you will get with this creature, but that is not necessarily a sad thing, because a moment can hold eternity in itself.
So pause, still your senses, and burn its memory in your mind’s eye, and this transient fellow traveler may transform into a lifelong companion. An anchor rooted in the silent spaces of your head, a secret wellspring of strength and forbearance, a never extinguishing inspiration to keep trying, keep flying higher and higher.
A divine blessing.