Be Patient, Be Calm

Here I am, standing by the kitchen island, sipping my morning chai.

Through the window, beyond the partially opened blinds, a pair of mourning doves sits quietly on the wooden railing of our small deck. Just one pair. They've returned year after year—at least for the last three years. Whether they're the same birds, I cannot know, but I like to think they are.

I'm no birdwatcher, but I'm fairly certain that if I open the blinds completely, unlatch the window, or step onto the deck, they'll fly away. So instead, I simply watch them go about their morning: cooing softly, preening themselves, and sometimes preening each other.

Curious, I spent a little time reading about them.

I learned that mourning doves are generally monogamous. They spend months observing an area before settling there. They tend to follow familiar loops through a neighborhood, and unlike many backyard birds, they prefer walking the ground in search of seeds rather than visiting bird feeders.

That last detail made me smile.

Over the years, I've spent countless hours trying to grow grass in our backyard. It's only about thirty by twenty feet, but beneath it lies stubborn, hard-packed clay—a story for another day. When I walk across that grass barefoot, I feel the quiet satisfaction that comes from seeing effort transformed into something living.

Now it seems this pair enjoys that same little patch of earth as well.

Folklore often says that mourning doves symbolize patience, peace, and quiet resilience. Whether that's true hardly matters. Standing here with a warm cup of chai while two birds sit only a few feet away, completely at ease in my presence, I find myself feeling those very things.

I am an immigrant. The life I have today was built through patience, steady work, and learning to remain calm regardless of what life placed before me. Perhaps that's why these small, ordinary moments feel anything but ordinary.

I plan to record this reflection as a short video.

Maybe four generations from now, my great-grandchildren will hear these words in my own voice instead of learning about me secondhand. They'll know that on an ordinary morning, their great-grandfather found contentment not in some grand achievement, but in a cup of chai, a patch of grass, and a pair of mourning doves that chose to visit year after year.

I find that deeply satisfying.