Late for Work This Morning Because...

I am unlocking my car door, when above me on the roof I hear a loud rustling. Ilook up to see a bird come sailing erratically off the second story and land, hard, into the tree just beside the car. The branch shakes for a split second, and then the bird falls, even harder, straight into the street below. On its back, almost motionless, feet twitching slightly, I know there is something terribly wrong with it. Instantly I know that it is dying. I cannot just leave it there in the street to be run over by a car, to die an undignified death (though it occurs to me now that perhaps that may have been the more humane thing to do, not painless, but likely swift). I cannot simply stand there and watch it happen. By this time, I am sobbing.

I scream for J. to come outside. We grab last night's pizza box, and while making impatient morning drivers wait, slide the bird onto it and carry it to the side of the house, lay it gently in the grass. It doesn't flinch, doesn't struggle. That it does nothing at all, doesn't resist, is almost more than I can bear. I stand there for too long watching it in the overgrown grass and weeds, eyes fluttering open and closed, breath shallow and labored. Quite large, but it is still a very young robin. It occurs to me that it will never see the soft, downy feathers on its chest give way to that deep, familiar, brick red color. I wonder if those same downy feathers I've been finding on the porch for the past few days were a warning, a sign leading up to this moment.

I am unable to pull myself together, spend the drive to work still crying, haunted by the image of that poor little trembling bird. My heart aches in a deep and twisty way. It is an ache I seem to feel frequently, for animals, but rarely for people. Only for a select few.

When I come home, I will stand in the darkness, bury the bird, say goodbye or something like it. The county health department does not want or need to know about dead robins, apparently. Only crows, owls, jays, and hawks. but that doesn't mean this little life doesn't matter.

As I often do, I wonder if this happens to other people, if it is 'normal' to feel this profound empathy for non-human creatures. Something so seemingly small as this morning, or something I simply see on television (the recent PBS show on hippos comes to mind), affects me deeply, evokes in me emotions that are constantly surprising, their strength, overwhelming and confusing. I have not always been this way, and I cannot help but wonder when this happened, when I became like this. More importantly, I am never sure exactly what to make of it when it happens. Seems like I need to do something, but I'm never sure what.

Duck!

Well, I've been wondering which 14 states are going to be affected by The Great Bug Awakening . No signs yet, but it appears that I have something to look forward to. For some reason, this part is highly amusing:

According to Kritsky, the best time to eat a cicada is just after they break open their youthful skin. "When you eat them when they're soft and mushy, when they come out of their skin, they taste like cold, canned asparagus," he said.

Shall We Agree That Just This Once

Although the skies are heavy and dark today, the air is only lightness and warmth. I am barefoot in a floaty spring skirt (yes, on 'casual Friday'), impatient, ever impatient for summer. So close I can almost taste, teasing, lingering, on my tongue, just for today. Summer: the only time of year that really matters to me. I said last night (as I do again, and again, and again), that I still dream of a place that is filled with endless summer. I love the metaphorical possibilities of this time of year, the hopeful promise and possibility for changing what one once was into something else entirely. Longing for the perennial shedding of myself, both literal and emotional, the casting aside of everything that binds, contains, and no longer belongs in and of my world. The boundless, faithful leap into the comforting unknown. In my mind, that unknown is always a day like the summer Solstice, a day of perfect balance and light. A memory: some useless French lit class, Bloomington, Ballantine Hall, Spring, 1991. In a sudden fit and without warning, winter disappears almost instantly. I make the mistake of making my seat by the open window, can see people playing Frisbee with dogs many floors below in the grassy area where Brother Jed sometimes proselytizes when the weather is nice. I wonder where he is today. The air is truly intoxicating and I feel too dizzy and lightheaded to decipher the Passe Simple. I pass Mark E. a note, telling him that I am going to forcibly make him skip our fiction writing workshop to keep me company on the thick, green grass of Dunn Meadow. Today though, memory dissipates into the air, begins the only negative part of this process. For the next two months, I will find myself feeling constantly like I'm falling, dizzy again, unable to concentrate until I can say with certainty that I am ready to begin. I could almost swear the magnolia tree's buds grow larger every day now.

The Shape of Things

Two good signs that the long, dark winter will soon be gone: On my walk to the bus stop yesterday morning, I saw one of my red-tails. This means they're back, repairing the nest for another year of raising young. I've missed them. And, a small swarm of ladybugs accosted me this morning. Other things have gotten totally bizarre/crappy and aren't nearly so cheery, but I can't make myself care today. These are the two things to which I cling.

Of Dogs, and Me

I can't decide if I find it curious or alarming that I seem to be able to conjure up a lot more empathy for animals than I can for most people (apart from the ones who make up the matter in my personal universe). Is this a flaw? Does it mean I'm insensitive? Not entirely human? After I watched The Ring the other night, the single image that continued to haunt me was the horse jumping off the moving ship – I very nearly cried when it happens. I can't be bothered with a road trip across the state to see my friend John play near Philly this weekend (a friend I haven't seen since Sequoia, circa 1996), yet I will gladly drive to rural West Virginia saturday to try to save one, possibly two, dogs from a kill shelter there, just because the NE Ohio Collie Rescue has asked me to. Oh, and then on Sunday I will drive the dog(s) to Youngstown, to drop them off again.

I wish there was a Real Way (i.e. a non-financially stupid one) to take this passion and make it my vocation, my mission in life. I would be a lot happier.

Only You Can Prevent...

Maybe it's just my over-protectiveness when it comes to animals of the ursine variety – after having lived alongside them in sequoia for so many years – but as sad as this story is, I still can't help but think: Wild animals are wild animals, and human carelessness can be prevented. And once again, it's the animals who were doing nothing more than trying to live their lives as they're meant to, who ultimately suffer the fate of this carelessness. If you go around tempting the Fates and petting bears like they're happy-and-harmless-bumbling-ole-Pooh, bad, bad things are bound to happen. As simple as that. People really, really need to think about what they're doing. Grr.

Standing and Walking

In spite of everything that has settled down like rain, it is good to know that I can still feel inexplicably and completely connected to This Universe. That there are still days when the questions themselves no longer matter and it is enough simply to be as I am now, fully present, awake and aware. And that this sensation, this incredible, connected sensation, can be sustained beyond a fleeting moment.