Springer's Journey

Paying Attention

This will be a record of a moment in time when I decided to pay attention again.

Not to the noise. Not to the chaos. Not even to the expectations I have carried for so long.

But to something quieter.A handful of oats, placed in the same spot each morning… and the slow, careful trust of a crow.

I didn’t always notice things like this. Or maybe I did, but I didn’t stay with them long enough to let them matter.

But lately, I find myself drawn to small, living moments. The kind that don’t ask anything from me except that I show up.

Crows are like that.

They don’t come when you call. They don’t stay because you want them to. They watch. They decide. And if they return, it’s because they have chosen to.

That feels important to me right now.

I once found a juvenile crow. She had been left behind, or so I thought.

I did what felt natural to me—I took her in. I had been doing wildlife care for 25+ years and had left her for a day for her group to care for her. They didn’t. I knew that for some reason, she was being intentionally left behind. That’s how life works.

It wasn’t until later that I learned something I hadn’t seen at all. She was blind.

And yet… she could hear me.

I would speak, and she would fly to my shoulder. Not because she could see me, but because she trusted something she couldn’t see.

Eventually, I found a place for her—a recovery facility where crows who cannot be released are cared for.

I did not save her. But I was part of her story.

And she was part of mine.

So now, I place oats in the same spot. Not as a grand gesture. Not as a solution to anything.

Just as an offering.

A way of saying: I am here. I am paying attention.

Maybe that’s enough for today.

Written with the help of a friend.