Birds live on high

https://youtu.be/MLNVV75yoY8
(link to my youtube blog)

All opinions here are mine and mine alone.

Birds live on high. I watch them every day--soaring, swooping, flying fast and far.

Our neighborhood hawk flies so high it's just a dot in the sky.

I would make a terrible bird--I hate heights.

As a deputy to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in Anaheim some years ago, my room was on the 18th floor! I tried to get a room lower down but there were none.

I didn't dare go out on the balcony and before I went to bed I locked the balcony door and wedged a chair under the handle in case I sleep walked!

(I've never walked in my sleep in my life....)

Mimi and Tim and Eleanor lived on the 13th floor in Brooklyn. I couldn't go out on their balconies for love nor money.

I'm sure I've mentioned this fear of height before, but have been reminded of it because our neighbor is painting his house and is up on scaffolding up to the tip top of the house. I can't bear to watch him up there.

I used to be afraid of airplanes until I told a friend of mine in college. I was going to have to fly that weekend and told him I probably wouldn't be able the sleep the night before the flight.

"How do you feel about it?" he asked me.

"Terrified, anxious, scared..." I begun to answer.

"No, no," he said, 'those are names for what you feel. What are your physical feelings?"

I explained about a nervous stomach, a clinched butt, light-headed feelings.

"Well," he told me, "why don't you 'name' those physical feelings 'excitement'?

I took his advice and call my feelings on an airplane "excitement". It works! (A couple of glasses of white wine helps too....)

But not for high places. I don't know why. And I sure wouldn't drink wine before going up scaffolding!