In Session (8): Bird Man
After his dog died he took up with a bird, and learned bird ways
I knew he would take the yellow chair from the moment I saw him step out of the hired Prius.
He’d told me on the phone that he was turning into a tropical bird, and tropical birds like tropical colors.
“I’m sorry about your dog,” I said. “It’s hard when your best friend dies in your arms.”
“He had Alzheimer’s,” Jay Bird said, “so I don’t remember him.”
I suspected him of eccentric humor and told him so, whereupon he affected surprise.
“Eccentric?” he asked. “It was the dog that had the Alzheimer’s, not me.”
He sort of made sense, but not quite. A Puer Aeternus, I thought. His spinal column shot straight up from his bony ass like a snake coming out of a basket, his eyes were alert as a terrier’s, his Mohawk was dyed in layers of blue, red and yellow, so that he looked like a Pride flag.
“How to begin?” he asked. “Where to begin? At the beginning I suppose.” He sounded like he was delivering a soliloquy from onstage, and I had the impression that he was looking past me, or, through me, to a wider audience. “It began when the bird and I began to meditate together, which led to psychic communication of what it’s like to live without fear of gravity.”
He seemed to be waiting for me to say something, but what was the point of trying to rescue this person? He looked like a fucking parrot so it was clearly an existential decision on his part, to live among the birds. I began to whistle, softly, not a known composition, but something invented on the spot, to let him know I respected his choices. Nonverbal communication. “Do you see any obvious problem with this lifestyle choice?” I asked. He puzzled on it for a few moments, then said,
“I’m not actually a bird. I can’t fly. That’s the obvious problem.”
I nodded to let him know we were following the same line of logic, and so probably were getting somewhere. I asked him if he dreams of flying, but he said it was the contrary. His dreams are of being high above the ground on shoddy structures, terrified of falling. “I’m on a rickety foundation. I get that much.”
“You aren’t a bird,” I said, “but you have metaphorical intelligence, and you can imagine the delicate nature of a small bird, and how to approach this nature with human fingertips, without ego, to know it in yourself. Then, in that moment, you are a bird.”
“So I am a bird?”
“You sure do look like one to me, so I’d say you can pass for a very large Macaw if you get the moves down. I’m going to suggest you eat more nuts and seeds, tropical fruits, and you’ll want to imagine yourself a set of wings. When you have them firmly in imagination, exercise them on a regular basis.”
“Exactly!” he exclaimed. “How else could it work?”
Adelia Ritchie is publishing garden porn, which reminds me, I have to do a piece about it.
I. Trudie Palmer I found something in her inventory I think is very interesting. I’m sure she does also, as she left a note for someone to help her “figure this out.”
Thief is reminding us that we are like frogs being boiled slowly enough we stop paying attention. We all need to be beyond the reach of corruption on our responsibility to help the planet get back in balance. A writing prompt:
