The Weight of a Hand

When I was seven, my mother taught me how to hold a bird that had flown into our kitchen window. She told me to cup my hands so that the bird felt a roof, but not a cage. I remember the frantic, rhythmic thrumming of its heart against my palms—a tiny, desperate engine of life. I was terrified I would crush it, or that it would slip away before I could set it free. I learned then that the most important things we hold are the ones that are trying to leave, or the ones that are just beginning to arrive. We spend our lives trying to grip things tightly, believing that pressure is the same as protection. But the bird didn’t need my strength; it needed the space between my fingers to find its own balance. How many times have we squeezed a moment so hard that we stopped it from breathing?

Madush Abeyratne has captured this delicate balance in the image titled Our Forever Journey Begins. It reminds me that the start of any great thing is less about holding on and more about simply being there. Does it feel like a beginning to you, or a promise?