Nothing
It is sweet outside
Where it seems magical
And if nothing works
We’ll do nothing
~ From the song “Beach” by Mew
A friend once told me that if we don’t learn to be present, we will live our life as if in a dream.
I am often amazed at the fearlessness of animals, their ability to hold on to nothing, to walk into the dark without dread or premonition. Some nights I lay in bed with the bedroom door wide open, staring out into the night clouds like some scared peeping tom, willing a ghost or nighttime critter to appear. This is the extent of my bravery, when in the morning I have to tend to the spiders that take advantage of the midnight access to a warm carpet and the dog’s water bowl.
And this is how they do appear, when I stop and do nothing. Just the other day I sat in the chair in my bird room, wondering whether I should pick the figs for my neighbor who likes to make fig jam, when an Anna’s Hummingbird suddenly appeared in the window, and then flew on. I was reminded of the time I spent a long night at the wildlife rescue, listening to the little sucking sounds of a baby Anna’s as I fed it a concoction from a syringe. It did not think “predator,” it only acknowledged “food.”
For sensitive animals like myself, I am never just acknowledging what I see or hear, my mind and heart are always seeking subtexts and nuances of communication and what is put out there. Most of the time I am reminded “to be kind, because everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle” and I am softened even by the coldest looks. But then I’m reminded that in some subtexts there’s information in them that wills me to survive, to feel fear, that all is not nothing.
Nourish
Before I fall to sleep at night my subconscious wakes up and asks me to stay a while. My mind wanders in to my backyard, willing the newly-planted dark clover to thrive, and it wonders at the sturdiness of the nasturtiums that have taken over the gazebo and are considering a war against the tomato cage. I bought a bougainvillea to stop it from advancing, but it’s just been trained and I don’t know yet how effective it will be in combat.
This is the one thing in my life that nourishes me, these late night daydreams where I float through the natural space outside my room.
No hummingbirds yet at the Salvia, but it’s only a matter of time. I want what I plant to provide for the birds that visit. I am excited when we water because that means the soil will loosen and the worms will stir. Though I stopped buying bird seed the house finches make due by eating the dandelions and the flowers and greens they produce. I love comparing their bright red heads to the grass I have let die to the color of straw.
Among the new additions of coleus, bougainvillea, and forget-me-nots, there’s a gathering of river stones where I planted one flower from a pink geranium. My mother told that me that I could just stick these little shoots in the ground and they will take off. “They are sturdy” she likes to say. She says that about all plants, really.
Underneath the stones, about a foot below the surface, lies Morrissey the cockatiel. Morrissey was a foster bird of mine who recently died from a genetic defect of his trachea. Through mites, lice, and a deformed beak…and finally his own makeup he surrendered, but not before he sang through it all, waving his little left foot for effect.
Though I don’t like to use water without purpose Morrissey loved showering with me. So I turn the hose on the rocks at twilight and give Morrissey a little of what nourished him.
Towhee is my alarm clock
Every morning, right before dawn, a California Towhee starts his chirping. I am typically asleep on the big red couch in our back room, and regardless of my reluctance to awake before I need to, his call fills my heart with gladness.
According to the Cornell Ornithology website: “California Towhees hop or run on the ground but tend to stay close to the protection of low shrubs and trees. When not foraging they may perch on shrubs, rooftops, and backyard fences, to sit and chip for long periods.”
I am happy to say that this is consistent with my experience, as I listen to him chip from the neighbor’s rooftop. A mourning dove might alight on the roof and gaze on him with focused patience, while the occasional mockingbird will wait for a break in the monotony to introduce a new and complicated song, to the joy of early risers.
Water and the beauty of spring
American Goldfinch, male on left, female on right
“In an age when man has forgotten his origins and is blind even to his most essential needs for survival, water along with other resources has become the victim of his indifference.” — Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
I greet the spring days with joy and some civility. I suffer from S.A.D., and do not enjoy days when it’s cloudy and rainy. On days like this I sit at my back window and watch the gulls playing in the wind and the lone mourning dove bracing itself against the slanting rain. In my sadness, however, I see the beauty in “weather,” the billowing clouds, the swaying eucalyptus, and the water we so desperately need.
What’s odd is that I don’t wish for water for myself. I wish it for the annual visit of the American Goldfinch (Carduelis tristis) at my feeder, and the California Towhee (Pipilo crissalis) that waits for the rain to make the worms available. It’s a wonderful thing to see the C.Towhee skirt along the ground and under the jasmine in the back of our yard. I sometimes I imagine I am Mistress Mary as I peek under the plant, hoping for a glimpse of a Towhee or its family.
I never happen upon a bird under the jasmine, but there must be something fascinating under alot of things, if we look a little closer; the bright pink Camellias on the ground, the Lilac tree relegated to its space behind the evergreen, and the field mouse that has made its house somewhere in the planter near the gazebo. Let us not forget these treasures, it is what keeps us young and curious.
Love
Today I was feeling very happy. Recently, a kind, gentle person from Iowa contacted me and told me that she would like to use some posts from my blog to teach her nature writing class. For a while, this filled me with love, and not to mention a longing to visit Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Truth be told, I still feel that love, and probably will for a while.
That is how it is with me, that when someone cherishes me for something I did that was born of passion, I tend to feel love, and loved. It’s something I secretly cling to, and long for more of.
And it got me to thinking about love: who I love, and what love is.
Today I learned that someone I deeply love had to experience death and the possible dissolution of their marriage, all in a span of ten days. I ached. I felt a pain in my heart that was not unlike yearning, but I felt a little more lost, and more unsure. It was like peering into space with the feeling that if you didn’t hold on, you might go into a black hole.
In times like these, I like to turn to animals for a lesson. What can animals teach me about love, and loss.
For some reason, when I think of love, I think of last Halloween, when my Greyhound, Jack, plucked a eastern grey squirrel from the Catalpa tree in our backyard, broke its neck, and proceeded to eat it. I shouted “Jack! No! Leave it!” Not only until I pinched his ear did he drop it. His body shook in a primeval way, and I could see he hurt from not only from me pinching his ear but from my disappointment.
I stood on my porch, in the rain, looking at the unbrushed lower teeth and gentle paws of the dead squirrel on my steps, and all I could do is be present with my feelings, that somehow I was responsible for its death. I was hyper-aware of the temperature, the cloudy sky, and my breath as I wondered how to best deal with Rocky. The odd thing is that I never felt more alive, even in death.
This is how it is to be in love, when you experience life without any filters. It’s also when you can let go of expectations and perfection, and learn to enjoy your backyard, even in the driest of winters.
Robin
The moon and stars
I’m so tired, I wish I was the moon tonight.
- Neko Case
The wind whips through my chimney and I have a quiet head. Nature begs me to return as I turn out my dog to relieve himself. The moon looks like a white button I want to push. As a child I always thought if I pushed the moon it would open up the universe to me, only now to realize I have to find my way one star at a time.
Let it be
“The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction” – William Blake
Today I tore a bunch of lilac flowers from my tree in the side yard. After I did it, I felt bad for the tree. How could I know how it felt when I did that? What a thoughtless person I can be, I surmised.
That’s the crux of being a sensitive person, things are thought through but impulses aren’t necessarily kept in check. Passion, or the tigers, retain a tight grip and unleash when teased.
As I thought about the Lilac tree I also thought about Julia Butterfly Hill, the woman who, back in 1997, lived in a 180-foot tall, 600-year-old tree for 738 days between December 10, 1997 to December 18, 1999. She lived in the tree, affectionately known as Luna, to prevent loggers of the Pacific Lumber Company from cutting it down.
She succeeded. What courage. What discipline. What anger.
What does it take to be such a disciplined person? Where can one find those traits? However, when I think about it, I am very disciplined. Every morning and evening I care for my birds in the same way I care for them every morning – clean food, water, clean grates, shower, attention. I’ve been doing this same thing most every day for the last 8 years. Some days I tire of it, but it’s really my charge, to be forever responsible for that which I have tamed. When I’m not caring for an animal I feel strange, like something is missing. Don’t get me wrong, I do things for myself; the occasional vacation, time with friends, exercise — but I’ve always put my responsibility above all else. I laugh at things that to me feel like a waste of time – obtaining goods, endless diatribes on the way things work, competition. I feel like there’s so much unnecessary information out there, so many people that are pushing around 1s and 0s that in the end just turn out to be 1s and 0s. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve been walking, outside, behind someone, only to hear several birds above in beautiful song, and the people in front of me don’t even raise their heads. No presence, no connection to nature around them – no idea such beauty is just above them.
But then I get so angry with myself, like there’s another side of me that I haven’t explored. This person who wants to be free of marriage, free to explore, free to live in a tree. I wish for myself that I could also be more self-righteous and hold fast to my convictions. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to be a vegan, tried not to care about people who suck, or just try in general to make it through another day.
But the good news is that I’ve learned something about trying too hard. You shouldn’t. Grasping onto something outside of yourself is not a good idea. Blocking the flow, not letting it be, is counterproductive to things working out the way you want them to. I have found that when I just sit back and let things be things tend to go my way.
I guess that’s how it goes with the Lilac tree, too. It just does its thing and produces these wonderfully beautiful and fragrant flowers, without comparing itself to the Camellia bush just inside the fence or the rose bush to its left. It does not tear the leaves or petals from other trees in an effort to make itself or another more happy, it just gives its loveliness to the world by just being.
The Western Scrub Jay
Until I moved to San Bruno, CA this last December, my interest in birds was purely a passing one. I was an apartment dweller in Sunnyvale, CA for the last 10 years, and for the most part only got to see the Anna’s Hummingbirds that visited our feeder, and the flirtatious Phoebe that on occasion would visit my windowsill.
Since purchasing a home in San Bruno and becoming an Audubon Society member for the first time, I’m taking more of an interest in how the birds in my new backyard are making their way through winter. Of particular interest was a Western Scrub Jay who had lost one of his feet. I speculated that it was probably from a cat, or that he had got it caught in something, but he had a very clever way of eating seed from my feeder. You see, my feeder hangs from our gazebo and swings – and as you can imagine the Scrub Jay had trouble balancing on it given he only had one foot. So, he would balance briefly on the feeder and scoop all the seed he wanted onto the ground, and then he would fly down and eat it, keeping an eye out for predators. I thought this was very clever, and I’ve been making a point of keeping my feeder filled while he’s still around.
The Western Scrub Jay, (Aphelocoma californica), also known as California Jay or Long-tailed Jay, is a species of scrub jay native to western North America, ranging from southern Washington to central Texas and central Mexico. Western Scrub Jays inhabit areas of low scrub, and are known for hoarding and burying brightly colored objects. They have also shown an ability to plan ahead in choosing food storage locations to maintain their future food volume.
In addition to learning the basic facts about Western Scrub Jays, I stumbled upon something that might tell me why my “lucky” bird had been so clever in acquiring his food source, in spite of his disability.
In a study done by the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, a group of Scrub Jays was “…given the opportunity to steal other birds’ hidden food caches; another group of Scrub Jays was not. The first group re-hid their own food caches if they were observed when first hiding the food. The second group, who had no experience stealing from hidden caches, did not exhibit the same behavior.”
According to the study, these findings were a major development in the field of animal cognition – that the Scrub Jays could demonstrate planning and have conscious thoughts that events might guide how they should behave in the future.
Thinking back to my footless friend, this made sense. His “event” was losing his foot, and his balancing act on my feeder was how he learned to secure food for himself. He had learned that he needed to adapt to survive.
Beginning again
With 2007 coming to a close I am thinking about how life changes and how hard it can be. When times get really hard I think of the teachings of Pema Chodron, the Buddhist nun who resides in Nova Scotia at Gampo Abbey. One of my favorite quotes from her is “If death is certain, but the time of death is uncertain, what is the most important thing right now?”
Responsibility
It’s been a long time since I’ve written. Do you read my posts? If you do, let me know. You see, writers need readers. Though we should just move forward without any recognition, it’s the evidence that we make impact that compels us to continue to add value.
I’ve been thinking about responsibility of late. Do you take your responsibility seriously? I try to.
I recently signed up for a nature writing class. After a hiatus from the natural world and the wildlife rescue (long story about politics and animals – another post), I was asked by the instructor of my new class to choose a place that I can observe for 30 minutes several times a week and write about it. Simple enough. I chose a place near my new house in San Bruno, but I won’t be able to get to it until Tuesday.
So, in my post food/liquor/holiday exhaustion I decided to observe the sky from the couch in my living room. I was distracting my husband with conversation so he wouldn’t watch the TV, and as we chatted I watched the sky outside our sliding glass door. I watched the sky from 4 pm until about 5:30 pm and I was blessed. It started out blue, then turned orange, then gray, then gray and red, then orange and gray. It said to me, “look at me, here is pure nature in the clouds, where have you been?” And I said “thank you, I am grateful.” It was a small natural diversion, but I realized how wonderful my life could be if I could just take that time each day to watch the sky change. It’s so simple, why do I ignore it?
OK, but we were talking about responsibility. And my communion with the sky has something to do with this.
Responsibility is about gratefulness. Here I am – I’m a Silicon Valley slave, I’m married, and I have 7 charges:
- Gracie the parakeet
- Kiseki and Milagro the parakeets
- Buddy the cockatiel
- Willie the cockatiel
- Beetlejuice the cockatiel
- Eric the Betta
Yes, they are pets, but on many levels they are wild. And when I get stressed and I focus on unnatural things I’m reminded that they need me, that “You are responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose.“ – Antoine de Saint-Exupery. So, when I begin to experience ego, or this clinging to self, I prefer to focus my love and devotion to the animals I have chosen to tame. They are not here for our entertainment, they are here to live out their lives in the context of ours. And the better we can understand their needs without our selfishness coming first will only make us better people.
I have seen my birds look out the window, longingly, and today I understood their longing. Their longing to sit in a tree, watch the sky and the clouds change, and be grateful.
I am so sorry for my absence. I hope you have missed me — I have missed you.
