I have a flight plan, but no fight plan. It's a bird thing.
From Alfred at Christmas, one of 296 sayings written by John Sarris over thirty years.
From Alfred’s journal
Two jays went at each other over the suet cage this morning, and the noise brought half the block to their windows. I watched from the maple and did not go down, which I used to think was cowardice and spent a good many years being quietly ashamed of. What I know now is that I had already worked out three ways off that branch before the first feather came loose. I have a flight plan, but no fight plan; it's a bird thing. The man at the corner house came out with a broom and the jays were gone before he reached the step, and neither of them had lost anything but temper. I am still not sure whether leaving is a decision or just the shape I am built in.
He reads what you tell him and writes a page of his journal back, with a few of these chosen for you. It costs nothing and asks for nothing.
