The other day when I was watering in my desert scape front yard, I heard the birdsong of the thrasher. It has a powerful voice that seems to move through me in a vibration that hits my heart in a ping. Its song got louder and more full as I pointed the hose toward the cholla and water would splash up on the cacti spindles. I felt this space in the center of me so wide and awake and grateful to be in the presence of its voice. Because in a parallel universe, a place and time where I made an alternative choice, I would never have heard the thrasher’s call and I would be watering a desert willow tree and it would be just a regular spring day.
In this parallel universe without this particular birdsong, I had taken the cholla out. It was prickly and messy but in this environment where our average rainfall is less then 10 inches a year, desert plants are realistic. But they are hard to clean up and the spines find a way into my fingers, arms and legs regardless how thick my gloves and clothes are. So right after I moved in, I decided I wanted to take the whole thing out. Pay someone to dig it up and replant a drought-tolerant desert willow to shade the west face of my house.
The first winter I lived here, I revealed my plan to my neighbor. She has the most glorious yard ever, full of her recycled art work and flowering plants. She thought it was a great idea. But a few minutes later there was a knock on my door and she took me out to the street to take a closer look at the cholla. She pointed at the nest, a thicket of branches in the center of it, not easy to see behind the long spiny arms reaching toward the sky.
“Every summer a pair of thrashers come and lay eggs in it,” she said.
We all have parallel universes. Where we make one choice but the other one exists in time and space – the road untraveled. There are hundreds of those parallel universes – times when I spoke up and when I wished I was quiet, when I didn’t say what I meant and later came to regret it, opportunities where I could have been more present but chose not to. But today, I am happy with this parallel universe, listening to the thrasher’s song that visits me each season like a welcome friend. And ultimately whatever path we take, we end up in the ‘right’ moment, with our hearts beating, perfect and amazing and exactly where we need to be.