The Longest Sit Spot

by Lia Grippo

The Longest Sit Spot
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For obvious reasons, I have been home much more than I normally am. This has been a time like no other, and while a great deal about being home so has been difficult, some interesting things have happened.

Things I’ve noticed while home so much more:A few days into this pattern I began to notice that a Crow took a stroll along the fence every evening between 7 and 8 pm.  She's walking along it now, as I write this. I noticed that a House Wren visits the same fence, hunting for early evening insects between 5 and 7pm.  In the mornings, a California Towhee searches in the garden in the shade of the fence. In the late mornings, that fence belongs to the Mockingbird!  A House Sparrow hunts insects under the house eaves every afternoon, which tells me they have babies somewhere nearby. The Western Scrub Jay flies into the neighbor’s orange tree with twigs in her beak day after day.

When beginning to walk the path of Nature connection, we learn that having a sit spot, a place to visit repeatedly over time, at differing times of day, is the best and fastest path to knowledge, awareness, and intimacy. This is a key and vital ingredient.

 This quarantine has been the longest sit spot I have ever had. I have learned the patterns of the individual birds who’s home I share. I have become more intimate with them as I have watched their lives unfold, daily. Like any long sit, this one has its discomforts, its minor miracles, its long stretches of seeming nothingness. 

 Pay attention to all that is around you. 
You, too, are in the longest sit spot.  

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