where i live now, ii
It's the birds, for me. We left during fledgling season and I was worried I'd miss them grow up but right now I'm watching a cardinal feed its very bossy offspring on the lawn chairs I finally caved and bought for our shared outdoor space that the sociopathic upstairs neighbours never bothered to tidy up although they are making their dysfunctional family hay all over our new patio furniture whenever the sun is shining, and I am marvelling at the red of it all, the cardinals shocking and stupid in their religious crimson attire, and how all of our babies are the same, pecking around our ankles and demanding more than their share. In Nanoose I chased a fledgling around the yard for an hour one evening, its neck bent at an odd angle, able to fly but just barely, mostly just driving its tiny beak into the dry grass over and over again. Everyone said leave it, leave it, but I held it in my bare hands and whispered to it as I felt its miniscule heart rutatut against my palms, so no, no thanks, at 10pm I drove it to all-night injured animal dropoff shed at the wildlife refuge. I presume it is now flying circles around the island, heralding my name, its multitudinous life spread out before it. It can hardly believe its luck.
We rode out the late spring and early summer here in Boston and everything went lush and warm and I realized once again that I wasn't depressed, it was just winter. I will never remember this. A friend gave us some of her pandemic seedlings and now the garden is a riot of tomatoes and some very sad cosmos that won't stand up straight no matter how much I whisper to them. We thought things were better so we went home to the island, a new place, and I thought I was depressed again but then realized I was just ovulating, and also that I needed to swim more. It turns out daily ocean swims can fix most things. There were the birds, including another one that hit the patio glass and died in my hands, there were deer every day, rabbits, an otter, a mink (!!!). An owl one night, swooping over our heads and casting a tremendous shadow, its wingbeats loud enough that we could feel them through the car. I just paused to glance outside again and there's a small woodpecker in our crabapple tree, dappled white and black. This world keeps turning, is what I'm saying, the baby rabbits in the yard grew up, my child learned how to walk and talk, learned how to throw a tantrum. I learned how to ignore the news, how to set screen time limits on my phone, how the steeplechase works, where the best thrift stores are in Nanaimo, how to record myself doing a monologue, how to lie better. I learned that when my child is throwing a tantrum, it is best to give her space but not too much space, to speak quietly but not too quietly, to be empathetic but not a pushover. Just kidding lol I have no idea what I'm doing.
Soon we're moving again. We bought a house. We didn't really mean to. When I cried over the dead bird Vic promised me we could make our new garden a paradise, fill it with bird baths and bird houses and bird feeders, the garden chosen for bees and butterflies, little dens for little bunnies. I'll grow tomatoes again so Mira can pluck them from the vine and eat them sun-warm and whole. The world is still awful, in case you haven't seen the news, but here there is birdsong and squirrels who ate all the arugula, those little shits, but have at it. Whatever bounty I have is yours.
radically consuming
- Sentimental in the City (which spurred a rewatch, which has spurred the inklings of an essay about how Carrie was never meant to be a heroine, we just didn't know how to deal with intentionally unlikeable female protagonists)
- Hacks, The White Lotus
- A Burning, Pond, Square Haunting
- the ocean, both Pacific and Atlantic
- unreasonable amounts of beet sauerkraut