I almost took a different route to the store yesterday on my bike ride.

This way was longer, but easier to navigate. ⁣

And that’s when I came upon this pileated woodpecker, pecking a meal out of the side of a dead tree alongside the road. I watched her in awe for 10 minutes. She allowed me to come within 10 feet of her, slowly, before she flew away.

I’d never been so close to a bird like her.⁣

⁣And two days before, I almost turned off on a different road to bike home. But I chose my route and found a goldfinch, lying still in someone’s driveway. I’d never come so close to this bird, either, and held his broken body in my hands with tenderness and sorrow before laying him in the grass with chicory blossoms.

A moment to honor this life that would have otherwise gone untended.⁣

We never know what awaits us with each turn, each path, we take. How one road and not another, one pursuit and not another, will end up shaping our lives. Even for a moment. Even in small ways that, over time, grow into something bigger.⁣

Not everything needs to be grand or “right.” 

It’s often here, in these unexpected sightings, that life reminds us there is something to behold on every path.