Presence at the Edge
- 22 hours ago
- 3 min read
A few weeks ago a robin built a nest right outside our front door and my family found ourselves deeply invested in the whole thing.
We observed the nest being built, noticed when three turquoise eggs appeared, and then watched as two tiny little bird babies were cared for. This all prompted me to do a bunch of robin research and now I know some interesting facts about robins, but the update is that as of this weekend these were teenage robins. And one had flown the nest, and the other we were keeping eyes on.
And this adolescent robin was perched on the side of the nest for hours — actually for days. He still had his baby fuzz and a speckled belly. Sometimes he would puff himself up and would kind of stretch his shoulders and we would get really excited thinking— Oh wow, he’s going to launch… but he would stay, seemingly super chill, just perched there.
I don’t know what was going on for him — or whether his parents were experiencing any (relatable!) urgency or worry that this kid might never leave home — but through his steadiness I noticed my own impatience. I kept checking on him. My son and I were at the window on Friday even saying aloud: “Come on. You’ve got this! Go! Fly!”
And the bird just… didn’t.
For days he was perched there calmly, his little feet wrapped around the edge of the nest... through the wind, through the rain, through the day and even through the night.
So I did a little more research on robins and learned that by the time they perch at the rim of the nest, their bodies are almost ready and they often: stretch wings repeatedly, crouch and bob, look outward for long periods, freeze and observe. I read that they can look contemplative because they’re gathering sensory information and building coordination. Apparently during this time their balance, depth perception, and wing strength are still calibrating.
So he didn’t actually need the pep talk my son and I were offering because it’s not resistance or fear... it’s an attunement to timing that isn’t externally driven.
From the outside it can be so easy to project a narrative onto stillness: Stuck. Avoidant. Fearful. Behind. But that little bird didn’t actually look held back. He also didn’t look like he was anticipating some future moment he needed to get to. He didn’t seem caught in becoming.
It was rainy. Windy. His sibling had already flown. Papa bird was nearby. And still he just sat there. Fully there.
This is the perched edge: the nervous system acclimating to a new possibility, the body learning itself and honoring its timing.
I remember reading something once like:“You will never be this version of yourself again.” I think often we are so focused on what we’re working toward that we miss where we actually are. Then later we look back at a photograph or memory and think:“Wow. I miss that time.”
We can watch this happen on our mats too: The constant leaning toward the next shape, the next breakthrough, the next version of ourselves. And we can miss out on so much.
That robin didn’t look like he was waiting for his life to begin or that there was any sense of this momentous thing he was endeavoring upon.
He was fully present with being exactly where he was.
And I think that kind of energy is something to aspire to.
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