Wednesday, September 15, 2004
Giving Us the Bird
Tonight is Erev Rosh Hashona, the night that begins the annual period of introspection and resolution, of self-evaluation and goal-setting in the jewish calendar. I am pretty psyched. It does raise the question for me, though, of what to post on such an auspicious occasion. I had sat down here to ramble on about some vaugely raunchy drivel, but on reflection it didn’t seem like an appropriate choice for today. Instead I’ll share a story that feels like it should mean something, regardless whether it does or not.
Heidi had the twin advantages of superhuman visual acuity and the lifelove of the very earth. She could spot a recumbent fawn on a brown brushy hill 300 yards away - and if she found one, she could always find another. She once told a diamond dealer which of his stock were flawed - he’d had to put on his lupe to see what she’d noticed at a casual glance. And when someone let a guinea pig loose in the park, she was not only the one who first noticed it huddled against a wall of shrubbery, she was also the one who went back to look after it later. Heidi can see all - especially when it comes to animals.
She and Andy were living on our block at the time so we were often out together. As I remember the particular evening I have in mind, it feels like we were coming back from dinner, but I suppose we could have been doing anything. All I remember for sure was that we were coming home and Heidi pointed to yet another cardboard box that had been abandoned in the greenbelt across the street. “What is that?,” she asked incredulously. Well, obviously, it was a cardboard box, used till it was battered into unrecognizability, soaked by sprinklers until it looked almost ... like ... a bird? A weird white bird with a sorry expression on its abandoned face, sitting comfortlessly on cold grass on a chilly night? Goddamn. What was that?
We approached it slowly; it drew back but did not get up. Injured. And hobbled. Something like a mini-turkey, white with a yellow beak. It sat on the damp dark lawn, its legs tied together. It didn’t look wild. Nor happy. We looked at each other and played pingpong with our eyeballs for a moment or two, trying to decide who’d take the initiative on behalf of this helpless animal in distress.
Eventually Heidi went into her apartment and came out with a beach towel. She slowly crept up on the mysterous creature, not wanting to disturb it, fearing it would further hurt itself, hoping its injury wasn’t too gruesome, anxious that the bird not strike at her with talons or cruel curved beak or hidden spurs or anything....
The bird, ungainly, resisted her at first, but in short order she’d swaddled it and embraced it, swept it up into her beat-up old chevy, and the two of them scrambled to the emergency vet clinic.
Turns out the animal was a guinea hen with a broken leg. The vet’s best guess was that it had been destined for some sort of religious sacrifice, but that its broken leg rendered it unsuitable for ritual purposes, as only unblemished animals could be given as offerings - so it had been jettisoned where we’d eventually found it. I suppose, if Heidi hadn’t rescued it, the local racoons or feral cats probably would have attended to it shortly in some permanent way. However, following up a few days later, Heidi learned that this bird had enjoyed a very different fate: it had apparently been taken in by a guinea hen rescue organization that would ultimately place it in a petting zoo.
That’s a nice way to conclude this episode, anyway, and I chose to believe it. As for the rest of the story, I have wondered for some time what to make of it. I have recently concluded that it is the universal analogy, conforming to every theory and theme that occurs to me. And actually, that’s pretty cool all by itself.
Yesterday I went out and bought a new writing book and memopad for the new year (and because the ones I had were basically filled up already). I don’t know if I’ll hear anything in particular that I want to write down, but at least I’m ready for it if it happens. It gives me a sense of nearly unlimited potential, and that’s a pretty good mindset with which to go off to services tonight. Have a rescued guinea hen of a new year and I’ll catch up with you on the other side.