birds of a feather

It was nearly a month ago now that I intended to write this blog. And I think about writing it every day as I drive to and from work. Why I push aside the thoughts that are important to me, and make room for ones that are not, I will never know.

A month ago I was driving to work when I noticed a Canadian goose in the median between the on-ramp of Route 2 and Interstate 95. Of course this is not unusual, as these gentle aves are plentiful in New England all year-round. But this goose was unusual in that it was alone.
My heart immediately sank in my chest. I knew why the bird was alone. I had seen this before.

I must have been close to 7 or 8 when a goose-driven drama unfolded across the road from my childhood home. We lived across from the "town ponds," a grouping of five small ponds that served at the town's water supply and home to many small creatures including muskrats a variety of water birds. A mated pair of geese had made a nest here, but summer had turned into fall before their eggs were laid, and they were the only ones of their kind remaining in Southern Colorado. We watched them care for each other, and work together to keep the eggs safe. They took turns hunting for food, sitting on the eggs. The male usually took charge when chasing away a predator, or leading it off with a dramatic honking calamity.
As human nature is truly a mystery to me, I will never understand why someone stopped by the side of road and gunned down this male goose. But the gravity of this situation became clear to us as snowflakes began to fall and soon only the female's head was visible. She was unable to search for food, leaving their eggs unattended, and my father took on a bit of a protective role for her- at least in the sense that he shot the neighbor's dog when the black lab set his sights on the feathered mother-to-be.
By some small miracle the mother made it through the winter with at least some of her young. And she returned, year after year. Alone.

As I looked at this bird in the median I remembered this poor goose I had watched 20 years earlier, and I remembered the unfortunate flurry of crushed feathers I had seen on the highway the day before- this birds mate, I was sure. The other geese had flown on to another feeding spot, but this one remained.
Day after day I drove to work and looked around as I drove the overpass. Each day I spotted the goose in a different place, sitting in a different median near this interchange, staring at the cars. And each day I felt saddened, wishing that he or she would go to join their own kind in a pleasant field or tranquil lake somewhere. I wondered if the bird understood death, and knew that it's partner was dead. I wondered if the bird was sitting there in grief, wondering what to do next. Or if the bird was simply confused by it's partner's sudden disappearance and was waiting for the mate to return to this spot where they had been separated.
Sadly, realistically, I knew that this bird wouldn't be able to keep up this vigilance for long. And on the fourth or fifth day of looking for this bird each morning, I looked and saw her lying just inside the outbound guard rail, lifeless. My heart fell again, but I profess I felt some relief for this poor bird.
The concept of "mating for life" is one that humans flirt with, but often don't seem to grasp. I've often debated with intellectual friends about the topic, expressing my opinion that every species either definitely "is" or "isn't" a species that mates for life. More than 90% of birds, for example, are monogamous. Black vultures, in fact, discourage infidelity so handily that birds who are caught philandering are attacked by the rest of the flock. Red-backed salamanders also punish those with a wandering eye. French anglefish are monogamous, and wolves are another species that often spends their entire lives with one mate, maintaining a nuclear family... but they are one of the rare mammals who do so.
Only 3% of mammals are monogamous. Gibbons, beavers (sure, insert joke here), most otters, the tiny dik-dik antelope, prairie voles (males stay with the female that takes their virginity), coyotes and even California mice (a breed, not mice living in California) make the cut- but humans are not a part of this small group.

I theorize that our alleged "superior intelligence" has created within us a great moral dilemma... which we have responded to by professing monogamy and exalting fidelity. Monogamy is a cultural and/or religious construct for us. It is a theory that we have mixed opinions and beliefs about. And it is also a conscious choice. It is not a biological drive or a behavior that "just is," as it is with all other animals. I think our ability for abstract thought counteracts any deeply buried primitive predilection we may have towards monogamy. Is all this "superior intelligence" really so great?

Cynicism aside, I do believe that some humans are naturally more suited for fidelity than others. I have always considered myself a monogamous creature, despite the pitfalls of my human-ness. I simply feel that I am not built for infidelity... but this too comes from my complex thought processes and notions about love and devotion and God and so forth.

Though I would hope that I would not be spending the rest of my days sitting forlornly in interstate traffic, I must say I admire this type of devotion I have witnessed in geese. I imagine that I would feel much the same way should my mate disappear one day.

When I was young, there was a cemetery just outside of Monte Vista that we used to pass regularly. For many years we drove by and saw a young man sitting by one particular grave. Any time you passed, there was a good chance you would see him and his silver car... and see the well-worn path from his car to the grave. In winter, his footprints in the snow. He sat by the grave on what seemed like a near-daily basis. In rain, snow, heat. We said, "that poor man." It was years before he stopped. Why he stopped, I don't know; perhaps he found a new mate, or he flew to find the rest of his flock. Perhaps he finally succumbed to the traffic- I don't know. But we didn't see him by the grave any more. The well-worn path in the grass grew over and time moved on.
But as sure as I am about anything in this world, I'm sure that a love like that made it's mark on this planet. In some way it made a mark on every person who drove by him day after day. It affected the world, it made it better. It affected more than just that one soul he was attempting to commune with in the grass. That love, and that grief, is too pure, too good, too right.
That type of love is too great to let all this thinking get in the way.

light years

Perhaps my memory fails me, but I feel as though I used to engage in some sort of mental processes when taking a walk or seeking a moment of silence. Perhaps that all wishful thinking, but I feel as though epiphanies and clarity used to spring up from my footfalls and float down to me as I stared into the sky. But these days it seems I could stare into the night for hours without so much as one profound thought. During these times I think about the Buddha, who refused to move from beneath the bodhi tree until he reached enlightenment. I'm unsure if even 49 days would bring me enlightenment today.
On days like this one, when at work it feels as though I'm struggling to treat a political juggernaut of an institution all alone, and I feel as though I'm disengaged from my own perfectly fulfilling personal existence, my mind is blank. It's thick, tired... waterlogged with a milky substance that keeps me stuck somewhere between ambivalence and apathy. Continually catching glimpses of my definitive thoughts, directions, beliefs through the fog... but never quite capturing them. On days like today it feels a bit like the dreadful 2007 version of The Mist. Without the disturbingly tragic ending (hopefully). Visually it's quite apt: I'm forever unsure of what is lurking in the impenetrable white fog ready to snatch me off the earth and tear me to a bloody mist... or of whether or not it is going to abruptly clear just beyond my sight into a green utopian haven. Birds chirping, dogs playing. It causes apprehension on most days- dumb courage on the best, blind panic on the worst.
I find myself sitting in the rocks, comfortably sinking into a crevice, staring quizzically into the stars and searching for even one definitive thought to hold on to. But the harder I run after them, the quicker they flee. So I sit and stare into the White.

I left Del Norte in 2000. Ten years ago. I left at a run, middle finger in the air, never looked back, and never for a moment regretted leaving.
Greeley was a place of growth and learning, the best years of my life perhaps. It was the first time I was ever told this and found it quasi-believable, anyway. But by the time I was done there my heart was positively shattered and I was a wounded, needy, sexually confused and on the fast-track to alcoholism. I felt the same urge I had felt so many times before: to run.
So I ran. I ran far across the country, this time to the big city. Without a one thin dime, without an acquaintance to dine, I sat on the floor in the corner of my empty bedroom and asked myself aloud, "Oh God. What have I done? I've made a terrible mistake." I felt homesick but had no specific home to miss.
And I hadn't made a mistake. It was the best move, second to the aforementioned, of my life. It was the place that I would be able to call home- more so than any place had ever been before. But I recall the black leather couches in the corner of the Greeley Borders cafe, and the words I wrote in my journal there. "Will I ever stop running? Will it ever be enough? Where will I run next? And after that? And where is left after that?"
I suppose I should consider it surprising that I have felt so content for so long, and avoided the uproarious voice in my head that has repeated the same words to me over and over since I was twelve years old. "It's not enough. You're not doing enough. You are supposed to be doing something greater."
Recently in passing I have expressed to my partner my urge to go, to help. "I wish that I had the money to just go whenever there is a crisis. Whenever there is a Haiti, or a Katrina or a Gulf spill. To just go. Show up and say, I'm here to help." I say, "I signed up to volunteer with the Audobon Society and the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. I will go if they call me." And I fully intend to. Why I feel that this servitude will be any less frustrating to me than my current daily employment, I don't know. The novelty of it, perhaps. Mostly I feel the urge to give everything of myself, day after day, in order to be personally fulfilled. It's not altruism, by no means. There's no such thing. I want to dedicate my life to the servitude of others for my own reasons. Whatever the point of this existence, that must be as close as we can get to getting it right. Right?
I think often about the Peace Corps. But I would be content (I have no reason to think this, really), by being able to go and help the needy when needed.
My rational brain, the angel-bird on my shoulder, tells me that doing good works is going and doing them every day, not when a disaster strikes and there is an outpouring of assistance. Truly doing good is to help the homeless and needy on our own street corners that we drive past daily and constantly choose to turn away from. Those who are just as needy but have become invisible to us, blending into the landscape of Central Square or City Hall Plaza.
I feel heart broken and enraged by the Gulf disaster, and the lack of importance we give it. The lack of thought, the lack of media coverage... the lack of understanding. Do we not understand what we have done? Do we not care? Do we feel it's just another abominable trespass in our litany of offenses, none worse than any other? Or do we just not want to know? We have snuffed out creatures undoubtedly far nobler than ourselves, forever.
I fear for the world. I fear for any children I may have. God I fear for them. They may grow up in a world without clean water, without sea life. A world where America is a police state and "give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses wishing to be free" is replaced with "all trespassers will be shot." A world where history is rewritten to cover the sins of the Aryan people, denying the very existence of any others. I fear for my children, I do.
I acknowledge the chaos around me daily numbs me at times. And makes me quite raw at others. The lack of human empathy, the lack of humane treatment. The cutting and the bleeding and the threatening and the jangle of chains and clicking of metal cuffs. The noose-tightening and the frustrated tears and the blind unchecked rage.
Yes, there are those living in the midst of this who state that they are "blessed." They do. They find joy within the confines of these walls and they work harder than I ever could every day. They battle to fight off this fog around them and maintain their sanity, to better their minds and amend their sins. How they are not lost in this place I surely do not know. But if they can stay afloat, I surely have no excuse. They are marvelous to me.
Still, my question of "when will it be enough?" rings in my ears. I suspect it would become an addiction- whether struggling to move rubble after an earthquake, scrubbing oil off of rocks with a toothbrush, or digging a ditch in a remote third-world village, I suspect that I would never have enough of it. And that would be fine. Good, even. As long as it fills this void inside of me. As long as this thirst, this pulling sensation in my chest subsides. As long as it helps me to see through this fog even a little better. As long as it quells this feeling of "not enough," and makes me feel as though I am fulfilling my destiny and obligation to the earth and whatever creator looks over it. Whatever Creator looks over it. Perhaps therein lies the true issue.
Another blog... for a day with less fog.