About a bird
August 16, 2012Anxiety is high around here. August always seems to ratchet up the nerves. Summer has lost its charm, but not its edge. The humidity and the heat and the smells and strangers barking at each other in the street. Hurricanes and tropical storms are coming this way, they keep saying. One after another. Who can say what's next?
I've had conversations with not one, not two, but three loved ones who were beset with (they knew) irrational fears. I feel like I spend most of my time in Reassurance Mode. I'm glad I can be the one who's relatively calm (for once), but then I worry about their worry, because worry is bad for the health.
No one is sleeping. And when we manage it, our dreams are weird.
A few days ago I found a dying baby sparrow on the sidewalk. He blinked fast, flapped his wings, toppled over. His claws were mangled. There was nothing I could do, but I couldn't leave it. My downstairs neighbor came by. We sat down by the bird, in the middle of the sidewalk. Other passersby stopped and weighed in on what could be done. The baby bird kept blinking. I made some phone calls. No one asked why I was bothering with a baby sparrow, which I appreciated, but there was no real help to be found. We murmured to it. The blinks stopped. Mostly we were relieved. We wondered whether we helped the baby bird as it died, or terrified it. We did the best we could. We knew it wasn't much.
Yesterday that same neighbor texted me: "I am not kidding, there's another dead sparrow in our driveway," she wrote.
"Don't worry," I wrote back. "It's just Zombie Sparrow, come to exact revenge."
She was sure there was a bird epidemic. It would just figure, wouldn't it? The heat is rising, birds are dropping from the sky. What's next?
There's no question there's plenty to worry about. There's always a crisis. But I keep thinking how, on one of the hottest days of the year, people came upon two goofballs crouched over a baby bird, and they stopped to see what could be done. I don't know, I guess what I'm trying to say is we have each other, which is so cloying, but I mean it. Everything's scary, but we can be pretty great. Even in the middle of August, and everything dying around us.
Reader Comments (36)
I so needed this today.
It is genuinely difficult, I think, to claw oneself out the pit of hand wringing despair. We're all gonna die in a car crash but not before we suffer immensely from severed limbs because we plowed into the woods and hit a tree. Damn woods, all tree filled and menacing to cars. We're all gonna die when a madman decides to open fire in the library. Damn books. We're going to all contract a deadly new form of SARS/bird flu/mad cow that only affects black people in DC because of course we will. The dreams of death, the fright of losing children and loved ones, it is fully mind shutdownable at times. But. Sometimes there is goodness. There is sometimes the goodness of people coming together, no questions asked, for a smaller being we can't even save but want to at least comfort. Maybe that's why Zombie Sparrow didn't kill you all.
Author Mil Millington calls moments like that "tiny boons", and man, am I glad when they come along in the middle of oppressive times.
I loved this blog post. August this year has been an extremely difficult month for me, I don't know... lots of people I know lost a loved one and it makes me wonder, I must know a lot of people because this year it's the first year that it happens that way. What you said resonated with me so much... it's true, no matter what, we're in one way or another together somehow and knowing that gives me a bit of comfort.
long time reader, first time commenter, because goddamn I needed this so much today. thank you writing and sharing. thank you and thank you and thank you.
Yes indeed.
Those are the moments, when humanity shines, that I love. It is so easy to get wrapped up in the difficult that you fail to see the kindness. Those are the moments that make all the rest bearable...even in August!
I love you. I needed this today. Thank you.
O! How I loved this. Thank you.
Awesome. Yes. There is good. Always there, but often hidden under the mound of WHAT IF and THE SKY IS FALLING. ((((((((((BabySparrow))))))))))
Love. We are all in this together, even baby sparrows, even curious neighbours, even big-hearted artists, even the ones who know nothing about this story. All of us.
Great writing on this one! Really enjoyed it.
This was lovely.
Beautiful, Alice.
thank you, for this.
(hitting "send" a 2nd time, hopefully not multiple postings. august is in my keyboard lately; i am really ready for some october in my keyboard...and in my darn hair.)
So synchronous. I recently spent time sitting with a dying sparrow (not a baby perhaps and yet...). It affected me a lot more than I expected, which inspired me to write about it, too. Something so small and helpless, it is difficult to ignore the protective impulses triggered. I wasn't near a sidewalk so there was no public response but I will cling to the positive response you were offered as proof no kind gesture is ever wasted.
I often feel like the Andie MacDowell character in "Sex, Lies and Videotape," fretting to her therapist about the garbage barge (while her husband screws her sister--fortunately the comparison ends there because I don't have a sister ... that I know of). I am often beset by irrational worries, and they feed each other. It's why I went (mostly) vegan: I felt if there were one small thing I could do to make the world a better place (and improve my karma), this was it. Thanks for doing your small thing, and telling others about it. I love your paintings, too: They always make me happy.
Wow. Perfect. And I'm not even having one of Those Augusts.
It's never just about a bird ... and it's never "just a bird" ... thanks for the beautifully rendered reminder that there are tons of people that care.
I so appreciate that people will stop for a moment in their lives to care enough to witness a baby bird dying. Caring is catching.
This is the right stuff, lady. Thank you.
"Summer has lost its charm, but not its edge."
o my, yes, that is august, isn't it?
there was a spell- my twenties- when august was just a part of the long hot glorious summer but now that i have kids there is the ugh of the school year to ruin everything and bring on it's dread.
back in my twenties a bird flew in front of my truck and it was maimed and dying and i sat there with it knowing it was suffering and that i had to kill it and make it stop suffering and be done. it was so. hard. to. do.
I love your writing. You've summed everything up so perfectly. I've been going through the entire month of August with teeth clenched and a constant headache. Now I know why. Freaking August!
Beautiful post, Alice. My unlovely additions (unlovely because they are practical and not beautifully written) are:
As a former wildlife rehabber, I can tell you that, when something is very ill or dying, you can put an old towel in a box, place the animal in it, and put it in a dark, quiet place. Sit next to it if you like, but resist the urge to disturb it. Generally you don't need a lid if the animal is dying.
Allowing an animal to die feeling as safe as possible is one of the most compassionate things you can do. As a human, you can't catch anything from handling a bird (though if you have a pet bird, wash your hands before handling it). Also, the idea that human scent on an animal will cause its parent/tribe to reject it is patently untrue.
Next time you find a bird that is injured but alive (such as with a broken leg or wing), call NYC's very brand new and only wildlife rehab center:
The Wild Bird Fund (Columbus and 86th) 646 306 2862.
For non-birds (squirrels and such), places like
Animal General (also Columbus and 86th) 212 501 9600 will help.
Animal Medical Center (E 62nd and York) 212 838 7053.
In all these cases, you'll have to bring the animal in yourself, but after that they generally turn the animal over to rehabbers, who will nurse it back to health and release it. Donations are accepted, because that's how they stay open.
If an animal is in need of care and you've put it in a box, a little dish of water is good (though often they spill it). Don't worry about feeding it unless you're instructed to.
Finding injured wildlife stresses people out, and with good reason. We want to help, but we don't know where to turn. If you'd like to become a rehabber (you don't need to take in animals--you can just learn the basics so that when you come across something you'll know what to do), read more about it here: http://www.dec.ny.gov/permits/25027.html.
Thank you to all of you who try and help the animals that can't care for themselves.
Joe, this is so helpful! Thank you!