Hello. This post is about Death & Birds.
The collective noun for a group of Blackbirds is a cloud; or—in our garden—a fuck-ton. I’ve released so many this season, and so many have opted to stay, that we’ve a truly unusual number at home, and just as unusually they are tolerating one another. In the mornings they gather by the office to forage, while the little Birds line up to bathe in the dish filled with dragons-eyes, each one patiently waiting their turn, like something out of a storybook. Yesterday morning, as this played out, David found a mound of Barn Owl feathers on the lawn, presumably the result of a Tawny Owl attack—though I’ve no wish to cast aspersions. He carefully gathered a handful and we marvelled at their soft, relentless intricacy. I don’t know if the Barn Owl survived, nor do I know when the Blackbirds territorial instincts will kick in and this whimsical treaty of theirs will be terminated. Suspended in unknowing, we share a moment of reverence: at our winged co-inhabitants, at this handful of feathers, at these things made manifest by the will of the world, and the blessed counterweight they provide, as the tension of being alive grows and grows.
For most of my life, I have felt considerably more animal than human. Animals, to me, make more sense than humans. They seem more honest, more wise, and, often, more interesting. They are less confusing, less destructive, and considerably less dangerous. I find being a human exceptionally tiring. Our rules are bizarre and our logic deeply flawed. We’ve extraordinary languages at our disposal—millions of wonderful words—and yet we have fashioned a culture within which, it seems, there is so much we cannot say. I wonder when, exactly, these cozy little prisons were built for us, and when it was that we collectively agreed to abide them. I have no answer, but the following is something of an effort to open the door, and step out of mine.
I’ve been thinking a lot about suicide, of late. To be clear, I have no intention whatsoever to kill myself, I love my life, intensely, but I am acutely aware of a part of me which frequently orients toward suicide as an option. When I am overwhelmed—whether by pain, or noise, or sadness—the majority of my fractured psyche will busy itself with trying to fix, soothe, or manage. But, off to the side, there sits a still, small voice, entirely free of malice or cruelty, which calmly reminds me that, if life ever becomes too much, I always have the option to end it. When I am peaceful, and grateful, and present to the exceptional beauty of the world, and a part of me inevitably insists that this peace cannot last, and that all manner of tragedy likely lies ahead, the still, small voice quietly assures me that it is ok to enjoy the present, because if it all falls to pieces, I could kill myself. I am equally fascinated by, and terrified of, this particular part of me. I wonder whether it is, perhaps, a habitual coping mechanism. One developed as a child with a dead mother, and the thinnest of skin, and bone marrow infused with loneliness. Or perhaps it is the voice of my autonomy, of a part that wants me cognisant of the fact that I am, on a second-by-second basis, consenting to existence.
So much of me is ashamed of this, fearful that it exists and embarrassed that, held up alongside polite cultural company, it suggests me faulty or unhinged. And yet, so much of me is deeply thankful for it. I look at David, dozing next to me, and as I drag my fingers through his thicket of silver hair I consider the decades that lie between us—how life might look should the ‘natural order of things’ play out. A chorus ignites inside, imploring me to “Stop! Stop looking at him! For heaven’s sake stop loving him so!” And the still, small voice comes, like the strangest of parents, to calmly tell the chorus that it is safe to look at him, and it is safe to love him so, because if anything happens to him, I could kill myself. And so the voice that tells me, over and again, that taking my own life is a real and present option seems, somewhat ironically, to be the one that allows me to live and to love as deeply as I do.
And maybe everyone feels this way, or maybe most people never even consider it, I wouldn’t know, because it seems that there is a collective agreement to, by and large, conceal the parts which we suspect would be deemed unacceptable. And so we go about our days, iceberg tips of acceptability, hauling a mass of angry, vengeful, lying, cruel and suicidal ice around, beneath the surface. No wonder we’re all exhausted.
The spectrum between the thought of suicide and the act of it is, of course, vast, and I’m intimately familiar with both ends. I have lost beloved friends, and beloved teachers, to their own hands, and I know well the pain that forms the palms which can push someone to that particular cliff-edge—just as I know well the pain that sits in the wake of someone’s leap. I don’t know why some are able to survive the slings and arrows, while others are not. I suspect it’s incredibly nuanced—and also, ultimately, chance. All I know is that, even in my grief, I have endless compassion for the people who have felt that they had no choice but to leave. Many years have passed since I’ve personally felt the need to, but those years have always harboured the thought. And those years have harboured extraordinary joy, and a depth of appreciation for life I once believed to be mythical, and so I’d have assumed that this kind of joy and appreciation would have tempered the thought; should have tempered the thought. But it hasn’t. And so maybe something is wrong with me; maybe my mind cannot hold the weight of existence. Or maybe it’s constructed a mechanism by which it reminds me that I am not trapped here. A mechanism which has me affirm, over and over, this relatively new-found commitment to being alive—as though it’s mindful of the years I was apathetic toward life, and now means to build the strength of my fidelity.
There was a wing, on the street, today. A Pigeon’s, once, I think. Feathers all in place, connected only to flattened, bloody sinew. Whenever a car drove by it lifted, as though it were trying to fly. The Barn Owl feathers remain beautiful and secretive, and the Blackbird treaty still holds—a moment-by-moment arrangement that will, at some point, collapse. It seems to me that there is only this: temporary arrangements. Held together by who knows what, guaranteed only to hold for a time and then, one day, fragment. As my love of being here has deepened, so has my capacity to be undone by it, and the balance is utterly scrupulous: a little more light is let in, and a little more dark summoned to meet it. I am inclined to believe that everything is sacred, and life seems to test my conviction. “This, too?” it asks, motioning toward a mound of missing feathers, or a dead mother, or a voice with its hand on the latch. “Yes,” I say, again and again, “yes, I think, this too”. “And this?” it asks, with a disembodied wing. And a car drives past, and it lifts, a single beat. The air moves and the wing answers, and I say, “Yes, yes, this too”.
Yours in aimless flight…
Friends, if anything in this piece landed somewhere tender for you, there are resources available, by country, here. You needn’t carry anything alone.
Exquisite. Thank you, Chloe: That still, small, uncruel voice has almost always seemed an artifact of my free will, rather than a siren or instruction. I am grateful to have it so. The world is better with you in it, and I hope with me in it, until the day the natural order requires we aren’t.
Chloe, I confess I felt sadness to read that you felt ashamed at having your thoughts. Thoughts that are, I imagine, as sacred as every other part of life and death you witness and give reverence to. In fact, I find your remembrance that you could depart, if you chose, to be rather beautiful, because in that thought - and that act of choosing - you are embracing life with a wholeheartedness that is … well, sacred. Because you are repeatedly looking at life, choosing to be a part of it, in all its complexity, and when it gets difficult you say, “yes, this too.” My god, there is no shame in that my friend. Just utter, glorious and beautiful love.