Bam!

Pigeon Guillemots—distinctive bright red feet, and those bold white stripes across the wings.

I watched them for a long time and still can’t figure out how they can fly straight into the cliff and find a way to hold on. Not one ever seems to get its brains bashed in, or miss a hold, or falter in the least. A cross section of the cliff must look like a hunk of swiss cheese—all those dark spots are entrances to nests or caves big enough to hold at least two birds. Bam, they hit the wall at exactly the right place and then disappear. There must be dozens of birds in this one section. One minute they will be poking out, or flying off, then all the little bodies snap back inside and you’d never know.

Reading between the lines it’s easy to see I went for a walk this morning; I almost made 2,000 steps today. Almost. 


Reading between the lines it’s impossible to see my confusion and sadness and anger at the state of our country. I watch the birds, and write about the birds, and think about the birds. I watch the pigeons try to push the guillemots out of their spaces and I try not to read too much into that.

Every day brings new desperation, new madness, new outrage, loss, pain, upheaval. I long to be eloquent, but I am dumbfounded. I remember only yesterday standing in the living room in front of the big old tv watching Bobby Kennedy get shot over and over and over. I was seven months pregnant. Two months earlier Martin Luther King was assassinated and we marched down the main street of our town. How could I think of bringing a child into this world?  This beautiful child and his grown son marched together in our town this weekend. Marched together in our town where the police chief and the mayor knelt to pay tribute to George Floyd.


I’m a couple beats behind everyone. There are videos I still haven’t seen, and probably never will be able to bring myself to watch. But I did see the disgusting display choreographed by our president. Our president. And I read an eye witness account from someone who was there that day, someone who had to run away from the church, leaving her medical supplies on the ground to be trampled by men with guns in the service of incomprehensible posturing.