Lessons from a Mockingbird

In the 11 months that I have been working this job, I have had to move my office 4 times. To me, this seems like a lot and I am tired of these transitions. They are starting to make me feel underappreciated, like I am Ms. Mobile who doesn't care where she works. And frankly, I finally got an office with a window (I never thought this would be what I would write about!) and I was quite happy with it.
And then last week, I was told we had just hired a new employee.
"Great!" I said, "Where are they moving me?"
I was being sarcastic, but then my coworker pointed out the door and across the building. To the windowless room that bakes in the summer.
I went home that day angry.
My client's don't even know where to look for me anymore, I am like that hard-to-find easter egg or the lost sock employee. If I wasn't trying to get them jobs they would have probably given up on me. Every time they call I have to give them new directions. "Upstairs, I'm upstairs now. On the other side! In the back!"
They see me and laugh. They're refugees, I'm sure they understand. Impermanence, for some part of their life, is what defined them.
I'm rather talented with the move now. I can do it quickly, and once I'm settled in my chair I look like I've been in that particular office forever. I smile, swivel around, type, have pictures hanging. But I decided, perhaps I am too good and it is working against me.
This time I put up as much of a fight as I know how. I went in to Jimmy's office and told him how extremely unprofessional it is to move around this frequently. He shrugged his shoulders and said "Yeah, well..."
I wanted to be firm and say "I'd prefer for this next move to be my last, thank you very much" But I didn't want to get stuck in the sauna forever.
On my drive home that night I sulked, and when I pulled up to my house I noticed something different. All our plants had been hacked. We had scheduled a "cut-back" of the overgrowth in our yard, but from what I was noticing this was men-gone-crazy-with-chainsaws.
Workers emerged from my backyard pulling huge limbs and trash cans full of our once beautiful flowering pink bushes. When I went back to look at the landscaping, it was stark and depressing. Our lush sky-high bamboo had been trimmed to an inch off the ground. The pink bush was gone. The trees no longer had leaves, or branches, or anything really. For some reason, they weedwacked the remaining bit of the lettuce heads in my garden, as if those needed serious tending to.
A trim job gone awry is an affront to the soul. This yard would take years to grow back.
I went inside pissed off, and moments later deflated. Kicked out of my office again, and now this.
I found my yoga mat and went to my front porch. I unrolled it and sat down. I knew I didn't actually want to do yoga, but for some reason I wanted to be in a bad mood on my mat. Its a great place for a bad mood because subconsciously perhaps I believed my mat was magical, that it wouldn't allow bad moods to sit on it, and would somehow transform me. I stretched a little and noticed a mockingbird. I watched it jump around and cock it's head to the side. It hopped to the base of my steps and looked up at me, then picked up a tiny twig between its beak and jumped away.
I kept stretching.
Another bird emerged and grabbed a stick, then looked at me and flew up in to the only tree that remained untouched and unscathed, a cactus tree.
An array of homeless birds began to encircle, their nests scattered on the ground beneath the thinned out tree. Their springtime homes, once so full and reliable, where now as useful as tumbleweeds. The longer I sat there and the more birds I saw, the sadder I got.
I felt their pain.
All that hard work and all that time they had invested meant nothing. Their place was gone.
A few of them were making new nests already, in the most undesirable spot I could imagine. Nestled between the sharp points protruding from the cactus tree, little corrals of sticks began to be laid down.
These birds were moving on, looking ahead. I didn't see them sulking. Nope.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes and this is when I noticed, they weren't just rebuilding their lives with what they had- but they were singing melodies while they did it.