With age come birds: Notes on time, awareness and watching for wings

Birds are disgusting. They really are. Sure, they can fly. And sure, some of them are brightly colored (male birds, mostly. Way to go, patriarchy.) And when sung at an appropriate and non-grating hour, they make a beautiful melody that has a way of pausing the chaos of any given day, reminding us that so much of what life has to offer is overlooked. But they're also rude, covered with mites, and will poop just any ol' where.

Until very recently, I took a firm "no thanks" stance on the things. Now my tiny household refers to me as "Miss Bird," after I developed what feels like an out-of-nowhere obsession with them. Not because anything particularly magical happened, but because I'm old.

I'm, apparently, in my bird era now, and I've got the feeders to prove it. It happens fast.

In 1995, the year I graduated high school, Peter Murphy released an album called "Cascade," which features the song "Wild Birds Flock To Me." During this time, I worked at a small amusement park in Riverside, California, as an illustriously titled "ball floater," which means that for five days a week I would spend my after-school and/or weekend hours walking around the park's mini-golf course picking up trash with one of those grabby sticks and waiting for people to alert me to the fact that their golf ball had gotten stuck in something, dispatching me to go fish it out. That was my job description in theory, but mostly — after a few laps just to make myself seen by my boss — I would sit on the back fence of the course, up against the flashing lights of the Tilt-O-Whirl, sneaking cigarettes and listening to music, with this album, and this particular song, in heavy rotation on the Discman concealed in the waistband of my pants. 

"The Crow," starring tragically deceased Brandon Lee as Eric Draven — a musician who, along with his fiancée, is brutally killed and then brought back to life one year later via a crow pecking on his grave, aiding in the avenging of both of their deaths — had just been released the year prior. As much as I would love to sit here and stretch listening to Peter Murphy while thinking about "The Crow" into the basis of my "Miss Bird" origin story, it's just not the case. Birds were as lost on me at that time as the majestic California mountainscapes that my mom would yell for me to pay attention to while I was engrossed in a book in the backseat of our family Jeep. "Look how, beautiful!" she'd exclaim, in frustration, while all I saw was dirt. And heat. 

There's an Oscar Wilde quote to put to use here: "With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone." It doesn't come alone though. It comes with birds. Just like the house sparrows that use their beaks to break open seeds in the three (THREE!) feeders I've newly installed in my backyard to get to the soft bits inside, the years have softened me, cracked me open. Now, seeing a rare raven perched on my fig tree, sizing me up and then resuming its work on the summer fruit hanging from it, a song from "The Crow" soundtrack doesn't immediately come to mind. I think something deep. Something about the fragility of life, and of the creatures that live it with us. I think of peaceful moments, and how they sometimes just happen, taking us by the shoulders as if demanding, "Stop. Just stop a minute and breathe." And I think about how, every minute, I'm getting older. And will, hopefully, one day be as old as my gramma, who died at 91 as a "Miss Bird" herself. 

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For as long as I knew my gramma, she was into birds. She had bird figurines in her kitchen, some of which made their individual bird songs when you pressed a button. She had ceramic cardinals and bluejays on tables in the living room of her farmhouse in Illinois, where I'd spend every summer. And she often wore T-shirts and sweatshirts with birds on them, one of which I took home with me after helping to clean out her house after she'd died. I'd never stopped to think about what her whole deal was with birds. It was just part of what made her my gramma. But now it's all so clear. Born in 1927 and growing up to catch the eye of a local farmer named Dale, my papa, it's doubtful she was going around in her bobby socks or whatever they wore back then talking to him about birds. That came much later, when she was old. At 46, I'm still far from my "gramma" years, but I'm closer to them than I ever was before, and getting closer each day. Birds, man. They just happen to you. It's happening. Right. Now.

I'm aware that there are young people who are into birds, and that having a fondness for them isn't an exclusively "old person" thing, but this feels like a turning point for me, and I'm embracing it as such. Like in "The Crow," when Eric pulls on his tight-fitting, long-sleeve black shirt, paints his face white, and goes out onto the perpetually rain-slicked streets, crow on shoulder, to hunt down bad guys. I sit here now, facing the feeder I hung outside my office window, watching the sparrows, bluejays, cardinals and grackles eating the seeds I put out for them and I feel . . . something. I feel so much. Watching my birds, I'm fighting for something too. I'm fighting for my own peace. For the ability to pause for a minute and take deep breaths, while I can still take them. 

After my gramma died in 2018, I got a tattoo in her honor, same as I did when my mom and dad died. For hers, since she loved birds so much, I got a bright red cardinal. And it means so much more now. Most things do.