🐦 Sliding Glass Doors

Thanks to a boon of Spring speaking gigs that arrived just as I contemplated giving up on my business, I was grateful to spend time with my mom and grandma last month in Southern California.

I had barely set my suitcases down when we heard a thunk against the windowpane of the sliding glass doors in the living room that lead to the backyard.

THUNK. There it was again, a few minutes later.

THUNK. Again.

THUNK.

What is that sound? I asked my grandma. She tsked, shaking her head from side to side. “It’s a bird, and he’s been doing that all week. I don’t know how to get him to stop; I feel terrible!”

His feathers were a beautiful royal blue, black around his eyes like a mask. Was he an avian Narcissus, in love with his own reflection?

As we caught up over coffee, he flew into the glass doors several more times. This continued intermittently throughout the weekend, sometimes in the kitchen or against the smaller windows of my guest bedroom.

“Glass windows are worse than invisible,” says All About Birds. “By reflecting foliage or sky, they look like inviting places to fly into.”

Tragically, “Up to about 1 billion birds die from window strikes in the U.S. each year, according to a 2014 study.”

With each THUNK, a nagging feeling set in: I am that bird, and the window is my business.

Contemplating his next move . . .

Where am I banging my head against the wall? Where am I trying to find mates (clients) or flowers (opportunities) where there simply aren’t any? What delulu illusions am I chasing, blinded by a mirage, with no chance of them ever materializing?

Most of all, why? Why is the bird doing this, hurting himself like this? Why doesn’t he learn after the first few painful thunks? In what ways am I ignoring reality, repeatedly banging my head against false hopes and hurting myself in the process?

It turns out these birds are not only lured by the reflection-illusion of foliage; there’s a second reason they hurl themselves at glass windows. From Penn State University (emphasis mine):

This is a problem that is most common in spring as male birds are establishing and defending territories. The male sees his reflection in the window and thinks it is a rival trying to usurp his territory. He flies at the window to try and make the rival leave.

I couldn’t help but laugh for all the times I have spent worrying that I’m not good enough, smart enough, or capable enough to run my business—or original enough to write what is on my heart and mind. How many times have I been fending off an imaginary rival, only to realize I’m threatening myself?

We are our own worst enemy after all, as the cliché goes, and as

Mari Andrew

wrote about beautifully in How Cancel Culture taught me how to love myself . . . and feel okay-ish in the world.

Apparently there’s nothing much to do for these self-flagellating Spring birds; even if you cover one window with stickers or blinds, they will move to another, continuing slamming into new glass.

However, there is one thing that offers relief:

“If this occurs in spring, it is probably associated with territorial behavior at the beginning of breeding season, and once a male has found a mate and has a nest with eggs or young, the behavior should stop.”

The bird doesn’t need more positive self-talk, he needs a mate—a real one.

In business, sometimes confidence and the tremendous relief that follows finally paying bills on time arrives after the new clients sign, not before. At least for me.

It takes incredible patience to continue throwing oneself at (glass) walls and keep going, to keep searching, to keep hoping—irrationally or not, because we can’t always know in the moment what will work and what won’t.

I have always prided myself on being relentlessly optimistic—at least I was, in The Before Times—and yet, the arts continue looking a bit grim, as

Ted Gioia

lays out with depressing specificity in CEOs Go To War Against Creatives.

Of course, it’s wonderful when we remember to have faith, surrender the process, and pursue abundance with ease and joy—TIME / BE / PRESENT / GRATEFUL / HERE / NOW and whatnot, a half-sarcastic series of mindfulness live-laugh-love reminders my friend and I used to throw at our spiritual malaise.

Sometimes, though, relief follows reality. This bird doesn’t need to manifest better to find a mate while fending off rivals in the window, his now-familiar haunt. He needs to do a 180 and look for one out in the world.

❤️