Rest.

In an effort to abate an increasingly sedentary lifestyle, I’ve been taking walks at lunchtime instead of eating. It’s a good time of year to do so in porn valley, with the mild sunlight above and brisk, cooler temperatures outdoors.

The block I work on is comprised of several large factories/warehouses and a few industrial business park complexes. It’s a big block—one lap around feels like a mile, but it may be slightly less. Some day soon I’ll measure it for results.

Basically surrounded by other sprawling, corporate industrial properties, my walks with a co-worker are usually filled with enlightening or brain-perculating conversations about conspiracy theories, indie movies or peculiar world current events which we most likely viewed on YouTube or read on Yahoo! at the office. There isn’t much to say about the buildings around us, except for occasionally trying to guess what the businesses are if their marquee doesn’t have a blatantly descriptive company logo.

Yesterday, though, I nearly brushed my forehead against the pigeon above, whom at first appeared to be slumbering in the low-hanging branch. On second glance, indeed it was in a deep, deep slumber—never to wake, or at least not in our world.

I couldn’t help wondering how it got there. Did it fall from above, lodge itself in the branch and eventually die? Or did it spend its final moments roosting on the branch until its life faded away? It looked so tranquil in its stance that even one of my co-workers, upon seeing the picture, remarked, “Wow, I’ve never seen a sleeping pigeon before. How’d you get that?”

I’ve been especially pensive on mortality—and immortality—after being introduced to the audio book version of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. It’s an amazing listen, perfect for the commute to and from home. Click the link to learn more about the story.