“You were born with potential. You were born with goodness and trust. You were born with ideals and dreams. You were born with greatness. You were born with wings. You are not meant for crawling, so don’t. You have wings. Learn to use them and fly.” – Rumi

A friend of mine recently returned from two weeks of vacation in Iceland. He and his wife enjoyed a long list of fun activities: hiking, camping, eating new foods, exploring unusual terrain.

When I asked him what his favorite thing from the trip was, he quickly responded, “Releasing baby puffins.”

Apparently when these baby puffins learn to fly, they are supposed to head out to sea. But a good number of them get confused and fly into town instead.

This is a common enough occurrence that the townspeople have a process: they box up the baby puffins and take them to a particular vet. The vet checks them out to make sure they don’t have any issues. If they are good, the townspeople take the box with the baby puffin to the edge of the water and release them.

My friend and his wife were at the vet when a guy brought in ten boxes with baby puffins. Once the vet gave them the okay, my friend and his wife got to take one box to the sea. There they released the baby puffin.

As he finished his story, I felt a shiver from head to toe. It feels akin to writing to me — releasing the warm and tender things we box up. Fly – and be free!

(featured photo is from Pexels)

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