"While watching a heart rate monitor recently it occurred to me that In many ways life is like one massive singular heart beat—a sudden skyward propulsion of energy and vitality, naturally followed by it’s equal and opposite return—all held on either side by periods of rest, in the before and the after." I found this part breath-taking, Chloe. Such a beautiful image.
It is a magic trick you perform every single time you dispatch one of these posts. I don’t know how you do it, delving so deeply into the great mystery and surfacing with these beautiful insights each time. I never considered the liminal state of an egg but it really is a perfect physical manifestation of something so abstract. Please wish David a happy birthday for me and thank you this.
So full of beauty--what more is life than a poem, what more is a poem than love of life. Those birds, the now--the ascendance of breath and a hearbeat matched by the pause of return. So loved reading this--thank you for writing and sharing such a gorgeous, tender love for life in your work. 💜
I nod, I smile with admiration at your unwavering perspective on the world ("How better to say “I love you” than with wings."), I laugh out loud ("(please, please a Bird)"), I nod along at each and every word, reminding myself that living organisms occupy a beautiful and brief cycle of lowered entropy (<I like to pretend that I have a grasp on principles of thermodynamics...)
Happy birthday David, you wonderful human being! Hope you're doing well.
Oh my God, that picture of the freshly hatched starlings is breathtaking. I often find solace in this notion of transformation, that I have been and well once again, be apart the soil in the rain that nurtures all that is. And ah yes! to join what reconfigures as a bird’s wing—bliss! Thank you as always, Chloe, for giving me something beautiful to contemplate of a Sunday.
Gorgeous writing. The first thing I read this morning, and I think I might put down my phone and go worship in the Church of Nature, and listen to the choir of the heart we share. Thank you so much.
“I sometimes feel as though I am both in and yet not in the world, that I too must fight to break into the world from inside of it—my shell made up of everything that I refuse to love.” So beautiful and true as a human condition that doesn’t seem to apply to any other species in this world. They are all effortlessly part of the vast flow of life, which we long for, too…maybe breaking through the shell is that process of becoming larger, truer expressions of life ourselves. xo
So moving that it took me to times I recall of the death of loved ones--and I broke through the moments of realization that you describe with such eloquence, particularly with the death of my sister whose heart rate monitor I did watch and wrote about in a fictional short story—with that element the only total truth--though the emotional truth resided all through the telling, and then, when my son died and I wasn't present at the moment but instead, heart broke, on the phone shortly before, I wrote this that I have shared elsewhere: "I did not know that love may speak in waves of silence." Chloe your writing moves me like none other.
Those baby birds are singing the same joy you ignite in the hearts of your readers—a choir of awe for life and how the cracked shell of your own loving makes us all want to hear our unified heartbeat with more reverence and more grace. 🙏
"... I began to see her as a living poem, penned by existence as a love letter to itself. How better to say “I love you” than with wings." "...parts of the current me will eventually become part of the earth, or a tree, or, God willing, a Bird." You write such poetry, Chloe. I am shaken -- as from a stupor, every time I read your work. Thanks for the beauty you add to our lives.
New subscriber here! What a wonderful essay. So many memorable lines! Past beings have transformed and are gone, future beings have not yet formed and arrived, current beings do not linger for even a moment. Who then are we reading this splendid morning? Light emerging from light?
"While watching a heart rate monitor recently it occurred to me that In many ways life is like one massive singular heart beat—a sudden skyward propulsion of energy and vitality, naturally followed by it’s equal and opposite return—all held on either side by periods of rest, in the before and the after." I found this part breath-taking, Chloe. Such a beautiful image.
It is a magic trick you perform every single time you dispatch one of these posts. I don’t know how you do it, delving so deeply into the great mystery and surfacing with these beautiful insights each time. I never considered the liminal state of an egg but it really is a perfect physical manifestation of something so abstract. Please wish David a happy birthday for me and thank you this.
Someday, on fairy wings.
And may that day be many years from now.
There is no doubt that you, Chloe, will be the most beautiful bird, to ever color the sky.
“How better to say “I love you” than with wings.”
Indeed.🪽♥️
So full of beauty--what more is life than a poem, what more is a poem than love of life. Those birds, the now--the ascendance of breath and a hearbeat matched by the pause of return. So loved reading this--thank you for writing and sharing such a gorgeous, tender love for life in your work. 💜
Always, always a soul-nourishing read, Chloe.
I nod, I smile with admiration at your unwavering perspective on the world ("How better to say “I love you” than with wings."), I laugh out loud ("(please, please a Bird)"), I nod along at each and every word, reminding myself that living organisms occupy a beautiful and brief cycle of lowered entropy (<I like to pretend that I have a grasp on principles of thermodynamics...)
Happy birthday David, you wonderful human being! Hope you're doing well.
I was a baby bird carer for some years. Those gaping little dinosaur mouths—irresistible! ❤️
Oh my God, that picture of the freshly hatched starlings is breathtaking. I often find solace in this notion of transformation, that I have been and well once again, be apart the soil in the rain that nurtures all that is. And ah yes! to join what reconfigures as a bird’s wing—bliss! Thank you as always, Chloe, for giving me something beautiful to contemplate of a Sunday.
Thank you, Chloe. This is perfectly timed, especially the final paragraph about mortality being a precious gift. What a beautiful reminder. 💚
Gorgeous writing. The first thing I read this morning, and I think I might put down my phone and go worship in the Church of Nature, and listen to the choir of the heart we share. Thank you so much.
“I sometimes feel as though I am both in and yet not in the world, that I too must fight to break into the world from inside of it—my shell made up of everything that I refuse to love.” So beautiful and true as a human condition that doesn’t seem to apply to any other species in this world. They are all effortlessly part of the vast flow of life, which we long for, too…maybe breaking through the shell is that process of becoming larger, truer expressions of life ourselves. xo
So moving that it took me to times I recall of the death of loved ones--and I broke through the moments of realization that you describe with such eloquence, particularly with the death of my sister whose heart rate monitor I did watch and wrote about in a fictional short story—with that element the only total truth--though the emotional truth resided all through the telling, and then, when my son died and I wasn't present at the moment but instead, heart broke, on the phone shortly before, I wrote this that I have shared elsewhere: "I did not know that love may speak in waves of silence." Chloe your writing moves me like none other.
Those baby birds are singing the same joy you ignite in the hearts of your readers—a choir of awe for life and how the cracked shell of your own loving makes us all want to hear our unified heartbeat with more reverence and more grace. 🙏
"... I began to see her as a living poem, penned by existence as a love letter to itself. How better to say “I love you” than with wings." "...parts of the current me will eventually become part of the earth, or a tree, or, God willing, a Bird." You write such poetry, Chloe. I am shaken -- as from a stupor, every time I read your work. Thanks for the beauty you add to our lives.
New subscriber here! What a wonderful essay. So many memorable lines! Past beings have transformed and are gone, future beings have not yet formed and arrived, current beings do not linger for even a moment. Who then are we reading this splendid morning? Light emerging from light?
Every sentiment throughout this essay is tear inducing and inspiring. Thank you for this offering and for sharing your words with the world 🤍
Beauty