(you are my) Sunshine
pockets of peace, and hope, and beauty
Hello. This post is about Death & Birds.
Years ago, on a gloomy November morning ceilinged by low-hanging cloud, I met Sunshine for the first time. I’d started volunteering at an animal sanctuary, and had been tasked with tending to the Rabbits which lived around the edge of the little park that she occupied and, as I worked, Sunshine watched from her straw throne inside the central coop. I’d never met a Turkey, before. I’d seen plenty but never known one by name, and certainly never loved one. In hindsight I can see how three-dimensional life had been, up until then. I was nervous of her, at first. The Birds I’d known prior could each fit in a single hand, and Sunshine was the size of a stocky toddler, but with wings and a rock solid beak. She made sounds I didn’t understand and she possessed a primordiality so unfamiliar to me that I erroneously filed it as volatile. In the afternoon, a member of staff came into the park and Sunshine made some raucous proclamations, to which the woman responded by going and sitting cross-legged opposite her. My stomach tightened at the proximity of this woman’s eyes to Sunshine’s formidable beak. I assumed she knew what she was doing, but also couldn’t help but wince at the thought of the damage this Bird could potentially do, and so when Sunshine, in response to having her chest stroked and softly being asked how she was, began to purr, I felt more than a little ashamed at having reduced her, in my mind, to pure reaction. I went over to the pair, asking if I could sit, and the woman enthusiastically suggested I bring some dry feed to offer, and I soon found myself kneeling at Sunshine’s feet, offering my cupped hands full of seeds towards her. The speed at which she snapped her head to and from my hands made me jump and pull back. “It’s ok, she’s really precise, she won’t hurt you,” said this most patient woman, “Watch, she’ll pick out all the sunflower seeds first”. And so, extending my hands once again, I watched as Sunshine snatched individual sunflower seeds from a mix which to my own eye was a blur of similarity, with the exactitude of a striking Cobra. Shortly after, she began swiping her head left and right, reorganising the mix to reveal her second favourite, the dried corn. When she’d finished, there was nothing but husked oats left in my hands. “She’s not interested in those,” I was told, “but the chickens will have them”. I felt a sudden deference towards this Bird, a deep admiration for a creature whose sovereignty saw her accept, with great discernment and skill, what she knew was right for her, and simply leave the rest. Over the course of that long Winter, I watched and participated in the forensic care offered to Sunshine. Like any being who has seen their fair share of Winters, she finds the colder months difficult and her arthritis sees her slow down, significantly. How sweet, then, the dance that sees her slowing answered with rising attunement and greater ministry. There were times in those months when Sunshine insisted on being outdoors, and so three or four of us would kneel in near freezing mud, two of us lifting her either side, as at least one other positioned blankets beneath and around her. All of us apologising for the inconvenience, each thanking her for her patience. Would that the well-earned senescence of every being be treated with such tenderness. Would that the road toward Death only ever be paved in kindness.
I saw Sunshine on Monday. Assuming the go-to position of kneeling at her feet, I used both hands to lift a weighty bowl of water to neck height and waited. After a few moments consideration she dipped her beak through the surface of the water before scooping and arching her beautiful, weird neck in balletic, almost ecstatic, fashion. She makes a sound as though she’s sipping hot tea, only it’s sweeter than that. Gentler. Moments like these serve as little alcoves in space and time where, just for a minute, everything is fine.
Certain knowledge is, for me, so like the nesting Robin who suddenly appears, inches away, utterly familiar, practically blood, and is then, just as quickly, gone, back into the Conifer which holds everything I have ever learned but am yet to embody. There is a longing in his absence and a grace in his return, just as with my knowing, and my forgetting, that I do not need things to be other than they are before I can be grateful, and present, and alive. Each week, Sunshine reorients me in the direction of remembering. Each week she reminds that things can be cold and painful and far from ideal, and still I can find a pocket of peace, and hope, and beauty, however small—and when it comes to peace, and hope, and beauty, there is no such thing as small. Just ask any Wren.
Recently, in London, there was a man on the street, preaching loudly through a megaphone (has anyone ever been converted via megaphone, I wonder?) People walked around him as though he were a large puddle, while he shouted over and over, “I know God! I know God!” And I thought to myself, “Yeah, me too. She lives on a farm about an hour south of here.”
Yours in aimless flight…
Thank you for introducing us to Sunshine and to your pocket of peace, Chloe.
Oh, I still remember the first time I caressed a turkey, or felt a chicken purr in my lap. It is divine! My children love to remind me that birds are the closest thing to living dinosaurs today, and I love marveling at their prehistoric nature, their history in this world that seems fossilized in earth’s memory. I so miss my volunteering days at shelters (not so many options for this where I live - a good thing perhaps) but your memory post gave me a small taste and remembering this morning. 🦃❤️