High Voltage Nesting?

I have driven by several on my journeys the past week. Can’t believe I have only been gone a week, feels like I have been gone a lifetime. Amazing how getting away from work, routine and all your responsibilities can grant you a fresh perspective.

Anyway, back to the nesting on high voltage…

I have seen several eagle’s nests, as I said, and my first thought was “really, there was nowhere else that was better?” And since I have seen more than one, clearly this is a thing eagles do around here because, in fact, there apparently isn’t a better place.

And as always, I found great metaphors for my own life in this strange habit of Canadian eagles (I know they do it in the US too but I didn’t see it there so for now, until I do, it is a Canadian eagle thing…)

I feel very in touch with this idea that after searching the environs, thinking that building my own nest on high voltage power lines would be a good idea. If we review my dating history, we will see that I too have done this more than once. Sought to find shelter and solace amidst chaos and death defying conditions. And while I would love to claim this was an earlier phase of development, I have to own, and you already know, that is a bunch of hooey.

I get that after living awhile and being challenged to forage and survive, then take on the parenting task, that perhaps all beings get a little overly confident, or tired. And the result of that exuberant confidence or exquisite exhaustion deciding to set up housekeeping in a locale which is really anything but hospitable.

Sure the view is great, but the navigating of high voltage power lines on the daily is kind of a drag, not to mention, more likely to kill you dead. This is also a metaphor for my dating and love life. What seems fun and exhilarating at the onset becomes dangerous and potentially fatal shortly thereafter….I am exaggerating, of course, to my knowledge no one I have ever dated was close to actually killing me…I mean, at least that I know of.

I guess what I can relate to most is this idea that somehow this basic choice about where to call home (in the metaphorical sense) is so very often misplaced for me. I have believed I found a home, a nest if you will, with a few men in my life. And we commenced to set up this whole nest building endeavor. But all the high voltage that surrounded us made us both crazy eventually. I will admit, that usually it was me that took flight and did not return. I am not one to stick around when the going gets tough, I am more apt to simply fly away and begin anew somewhere else, leaving the other eagle to tend to the mess that remains.

There is an ineffable sadness to seeing an eagle’s nest amidst high voltage power lines. It just feels wrong. Like somehow our human world has completely and totally fucked up their world. Like they were doing fine until we came along…and now they are doing bizarre shit like building nests and attempting to raise families while thousands of volts of death rattling energy surges beneath them. This can’t be healthy. I can’t even stand the hum of power lines. I can’t imagine living atop them.

But I do get the underlying notion that perhaps this place with the great view will somehow magically work out and not kill your soul, or hurt your reproductive cycles or maim you forever. I have been guilty of similar choices myself. And likely for the same reason, sometimes a being just gets tired of searching. The burden of where to land, where to live, where to raise one’s young, where to build this life and with whom, gets to just be a little much. And so you just give up and take the next place you see. It isn’t a good decision on any level, but you live with your choice, until you either have the opportunity to make another one or that last choice takes you out in a fit of fire and feathers.

I think this whole scenario bothers me most because I believe eagles to be more intelligent than me. I mean, they have so much perspective I lack. They can see for miles while I am stuck here walking the ground. I guess I kind of expected more from them, for them to make better choices. To be fair, I expect the same thing from myself and God knows I let me down more often than I would like to admit.

Nesting in a high voltage environment feels like what dating attempts are these days. It is perilous and full of what appear to be amazing views which upon further reflection, are totally not worth risking life and limb.

I see this behavior of eagles as emblematic of a great societal ill…the encroachment of what we call civilization which at its current pace is going to remove us all from the planet faster than you can say “danger — high voltage!”

I do not know what is happening to us as a species. We all long for and need connection, touch, companionship, to be a part of something greater than just our own silly demands but we are creating a world that is happening in more and more isolated ways. Removing the humanness from the experience of being human. Death scrolling for hours instead of playing cards by a campfire. Online dating which is just another version of death scrolling in my experience. It feels like we have just gotten this whole living thing wrong, so very, very wrong.

Not everyone for sure. There are people out there who are connected to life and living and love the people in their lives. They aren’t cheating on their spouses, fucking everything that has a pulse or engaging in toxic relational engagements like there is not an ultimate price to be paid. Perhaps the eagles think this way too when they select high wire nesting building. Perhaps they too are tired of searching for a home, so they just settle on a place that, upon any reflection at all, is just a bad deal all the way round.

All of my time alone hasn’t done much to change my conclusion that human beings are rapidly moving themselves toward extinction. Or maybe just making choices to make life less worth living. If we are paying attention to how life is being lived these days, we should be alarmed, we should be concerned. Climate change is going to kill us all, but we are too busy shopping, consuming, fucking and failing to actually connect to notice that we are kind of missing the point to this whole living experience.

How did I become so jaded in this life to believe that something that threatens a living death could ever be a safe space? How could I believe that building my life around something or someone who exudes voltage in the highest order, would ever be a good idea? How and exactly when will I have the courage to change my own trajectory and give up attempting to build something in a place where love and intimacy and care seem to be long ago ideas that have no place in the world today?

And to my feathered friends, I say, “come on, you can do better, I look to you for wisdom, perspective and grace. You have been here longer and I am sure you know more. Do not follow us, we are absolutely fucking mad and total idiots. Tuck your nests away in the highest of trees away from all of us, secure your own salvation, sanity and safety by never following the human example. We are fucking this whole living thing up on every single level.”

And while that last statement makes me incredibly sad, it is how I feel. Which is a hard and sharp point for an eternal optimist and passionate believer in the good in this life. As a hopeless romantic, it is brutal to feel this way. To live each day with this relentless hope and to walk amongst the world that shows me every single day how little there is to truly believe in anymore.

And while I walk the high voltage wire betwixt living and giving up, I can tell you that I am done with high voltage nest building. I will take a lower, safer vista, which in my case, might just be a solo adventure. I mean, I am all done with the raising of eaglets so perhaps being solo for the rest of this journey is better. I mean, really, that is the only conclusion I can come to given my life experiences so far. But to life, I throw down the challenge to prove me wrong. Show me something different to believe in, please. Show me that high voltage living and nest building is really only for the birds.

Again, still.