Dispatch #3
on common birds
Hi friends! This week Stevie and I celebrated our six year marriage anniversary. The traditional gift for year six is iron — she gave me a lovely pocket knife (technically S30V steel), I gifted her a cast iron cookware piece. I’m really lucky to have a partner who is also a friend, a comrade, and pretty dang good at makin’ do.
Growing together is a tough piece of the puzzle to get right in any relationship, romantic or not, and although Stevie and I started our journey together in different spots from where we are now, I feel nothing short of blessed when I consider how we’ve converged in values, politics, and motivation to be engaged in the world. That doesn’t happen by accident. My only advice: talk to the people you love often, and about important things — read and study with one another, listen to a podcast together, poke and prod your point-of-views, get a little stoned and ramble on for a few hours.
This morning I went birding. Getting out of bed a bit later than I had hoped due to a restless night, off I went with my field guide, binoculars, and rain jacket. Birding in the rain is especially lovely. On a clear day, I can lean on my eyes for the flickers of wings in the tall branches. But this morning, fat drops made the leaves twitch and sway — so I spent time listening to the woods. They teemed with sound; I spied red-eyed vireo, cardinal, robin, grackle, red-bellied woodpecker, carolina wren, tufted titmouse.
On the trail, a woman with a german shepherd dog ran by, but then back-tracked to me, “are you birding? Have you seen anything exciting? I want to start birding — do you know where I could see bald eagles?”
The off-leash wet shepherd leaned against me. “Yes. Nobody exciting, just common birds. I’m not sure about the eagles — I’m new here — but there’s an Audubon society nature preserve just northeast of the city, you should go up there and ask. They’re far beyond me, I’m just a beginner.” She seemed dissappointed by my lack of eagle intel. I mentioned how nice it was outside, she said, “it is raining, but yes it is cool.” And they trotted off.
I felt the light smack of guilt and bad faith: why had I said, “nobody exciting” when I had been absolutely thrilled to see an iridescent grackle with his bizarre digital call, a bright flash of a male cardinal, a fierce wren of my home state? I have welled up with tears while watching pigeons. I have written poems about ruddy robins pulling worms from the soft ground. Eastern bluebirds, once a threatened species, now a frequent guest in the yard, are by far my favorite bird. Their commonness makes them familiar, not boring. Every time Stevie returns from a group bike ride, I ask her, “who did you see?” I am excited to hear when she lists our neighbors. I am elated to take a walk with Billie Goat and run into someone we know well, someone we see often, enjoying their day weeding, porch-sitting, smoking, taking a letter to the drop box. It is the very highlight of my day and — to be quite honest with you — one of the things that makes this life worth living.
Those common birds are my neighbors. The red-eyed vireo, cardinal, robin, grackle, red-bellied woodpecker, carolina wren, tufted titmouse are as familiar to me as my own kin. If I ever see a world in which they aren’t flitting about in broad-leafed forests I call home (and if ever those forests should disappear), I will know my own end is near. Why shouldn’t I delight in their presence? They are a sign of life, a reminder that the world only spins forward, opening and closing in their strange, familiar songs.