visitors
Hello. This post is about Death & Birds.
David has been away this week and so I have been tasked with the early morning seed distribution at home. This might sound relatively simple but David is acutely familiar with the needs & preferences of our feathered co-inhabitants, and so I’ve a strict list of instructions to follow: don’t let the Starlings dominate the yellow feeder, the Blackbird eats alone by the vegetable patch, the Robin will eat from your hand, there are two spots on the lawn that the Crows like to eat from, if there are little Birds waiting in the apple tree make the Collared Doves move etc. I endeavour to be a good host.
The invisible roots of my family tree grow out from my back and shoulders, forming an ever expanding fan of mycelium-like relation which reaches far beyond the familial. It spans out to every person, every tree and every Bird I’ve ever met, touched or held. There are some people in this web who I wish to deny, to cut out, just as there are parts of me that I wish to deny and to cut out, but the more I accept and forgive things for being just as they are, the better able I am to witness, and withstand, beauty.
Driving through the woods last week, en route to work, I was plagued by a subtle but insistent sensation, a tight and weighty cloud sitting in and about my throat, chest and stomach. I kept sighing, trying to make it give up a little ground when, on an inhale, my breath caught, hitched, and my eyes welled with tears. I knew that this was a knock at my door, a visitor keen to be invited in—and I had to decide quickly whether or not to welcome them.
Had I not been in the woods, I would have resisted. I would have made excuses and held the door firmly closed until this visiting grief turned away. But these woods are home to an old and wise network of trees and Birds who remind me to move with the winds, not against them. So, I drive into a clearing where dog walkers sometimes park their cars, take off my seat belt, and enter into urgent negotiations with the fast approaching tidal wave—agreeing to let it in, but politely asking that it please not floor me.
My body wants to fold in on itself, to collapse around my heart in effort to shield it—but my beloved has taught me well. He knows that grief is sacred and should be honoured, ever more so now as our corner of the world eyes it with unease. And so, I open my shoulders and tilt my head back, gasping in-between this first wave of sobs. A part of me wants to know, to understand, why this is happening, what it is about, whether or not it is mine. But those details only hold so much relevance, because while some is mine, some of it older than the trees, and some is fresh, green, newborn grief, all of it requires a body to move through.
In its undulating way, the wave eases and I slow down my breath, but, as I do so, I picture the faces from the news that morning, grief-twisted faces of men kneeling with hands spread over tiny, body-shaped shrouds. The wave turns and hurtles back to shore, catching me off guard and doubling me over.
How? How is this what we’re doing?
I know that my visitor wants a sound, it needs and deserves a voice, but it has to contend with a conditioning so old and so rigid that I cannot give it one. Shame forms the most extraordinary prison, and it prevents me from offering my guest the loud, keening cry it so wants. The best I can give it is a bite of my fist which almost draws blood. Now, fully in the crescendo of my lament, I panic. I feel out of control and like this will never end, that I am being consumed by this force and should never have agreed to it. I cannot form a coherent thought—I want David, I want my long-dead mother, I want someone to make this stop. Please, someone make this stop.
As I writhe in discomfort and those words loop in my mind, the wave gradually diminishes, though it takes me a moment to notice. I slowly reorientate to my surroundings and realise that my visitor is gathering its things, ready to leave. As I let out a long exhale the wave quietly sees itself out, leaving only a sense of spaciousness behind.
When I eventually set out and continue along my way I picture these nebulous pockets of grief, moving from person to person, door to door, tireless in their pursuit of a temporary occupant—a physical manifestation with whom they might collaborate in order to transmute that which they carry. The spaciousness which the wave so generously leaves in its wake is always worth the labour of the meeting. I endeavour to be a good host.
Being both in love with and devastated by life makes for a strange and paradoxical state, and for those of us daring to pay attention it is largely unavoidable. But, when we simultaneously hold two opposites we are Birds mid-flight; balanced, expansive and exquisitely alive.
And there are few better ways to honour the dead, than more fully inhabiting our aliveness.
Yours in aimless flight…
Chloe, I feel like you have become a lightning rod for all the suffering in the world and on Sundays you ground all that white hot grief that the rest of us don’t allow in. I hope you are taking care of yourself. The writing here is exquisite as always. This line in particular:
“The spaciousness which the wave so generously leaves in its wake is always worth the labour of the meeting.”
Egads, Chloe. Your writing always arrives at the moment I most need it. I won't try to be cute. That's all I've got except that I am eternally grateful for your words and every ounce I squeeze out of them. Honestly! I cannot overstate the impact. Thank you.