We are all we have
It’s a flaw in our design. We see something often enough and stop seeing it altogether.
It’s a flaw in our design. We see something often enough and stop seeing it altogether. Like the robins in my backyard. Most mornings they elicit from me…nothing. There they are. Robins. A pair of them. Sometimes half a dozen. These are creatures who can, you know, fly, and yet…yawn.
But I can’t think of a single outdoor memory where they wouldn’t have been in my periphery. A million fishing trips with my dad to the creek behind our house. Mornings in spring with the windows open to their singing. Mornings in elementary school when the work bored me to tears and there they would be, on the playground, dipping beaks into a puddle after last night’s rain.
I shot and killed one once with a BB gun. Just because I could. I was maybe 12 or 13, alone one morning with nothing to do. I collected it in a paper bag and disposed of it deep in the woods behind our house. It was incredibly light in the bag. I could almost pretend the bag was empty. If anyone found out, I decided, I’d just tell them I thought it was a grackle and I’d shot it by mistake. I had my mother’s permission to shoot grackles. The difference was never explained.
The truth is I still don’t know shit about robins and their lives, and nothing in my life has necessitated learning the first thing about them. Even though I see them everywhere, all the time.
“They live by instinct,” I remember my second grade teacher Mrs. Cree saying about robins. “Instinct!”
That’s how they knew where to find food and shelter; how they knew how to raise their young; how they knew it was time to head south for the winter. Instinct. Something inborn. Unlike all of us, who painstakingly had to learn our times tables and start reading chapter books. Birds just fucking knew. And I remember thinking—even as far back as second grade—that that was a cop out. Just because we didn’t understand them didn’t mean they didn’t have their reasons. They flew off when I ran at them on the playground, splashing puddles. That was threat recognition. That’s probably why they grew wings.
But even instinct couldn’t protect them from a quiet kid with a BB gun some sun-dappled summer morning.
Almost 40 years later I accompany that boy picking through the woods with his light-as-air paper bag, hoping to hide his shame. All around us robins chirp and sing, swooping in pairs through the treetops. In a little notebook I carry around for just such moments, I write a poem:
Robin Broken white eye-ring, black beaded eye, little hop cock of the head irritated chup spirited tut-tut-tut pecking limp worms from the dirt fluttering into an oak singing cheerily, cheer up! cheerily, cheer up! I am listening, Friend. I am trying—
I said earlier that when we see something often enough, we stop seeing it altogether—and that includes ourselves. The robins hold up a mirror we should consult more often. All the little vulnerable creatures. There is no periphery. We are all we have.
I was studying botanical illustration at the ny botanical gardens and decided to do an accordion fold out book on Robins- unfolding out of a box I created. this required me to measure and pay attention- not something I easily yield to- direction and guidance not my thing. Robins have three families a season. Robins are all friends when it ISN'T mating season. Robins love my bird bath but won't bathe with the BlueJays. I say my mosquitoes are the same size as Robins. Perhaps I have exaggerated a tad...and yes are they ever light. I'm pals with an animal rescue lady and bird counter in our area- it's what it sounds like. she counts birds. she stopped by to check on our 12.5 year old pup PoppyLooBlue who had just had cancer surgery. All gone. Cone for 15 days . Happy. She said she was counting birds today and I said come count the FOUR baby blue jays I found in the forsythia. Luckily they don't move fast or far. There they were. She cupped one in her hands and placed it in MY HANDS. I started to protest and she said birds can't smell. his mother will not reject him.It's a myth. the blue is and was the best best blue. So light. so light. wow. I wondered so all those times they told us don't touch the baby: fawn, bunny, squirrel, bird...that was some parent making that up just so we'd leave the poor thing alone. kinda like you can't swim after lunch for an hour? way to go moms...Thanks for the read Steve
Outstanding, Steve.