I CAN'T BELIEVE I SAID THAT

  Two days ago I emptied and closed down my bird feeders, dumped upside down the birdbath. Birds on my patio have been few and far between this spring and my suspicions are confirmed. When people understand there is a deadly virus on the loose we act accordingly, at least some of us do. But birds don’t have a clue. They score high among other animals on intelligence tests but when it comes to disease, they don’t have a clue. There is a strain of Avian Flu (Bird Flu) that is laying waste to bird populations across North America just as they are about to fledge a new generation. 
The NY Times just ran an article that recommends shutting down feeders and bird baths. Avian flu is highly contagious, nearly always fatal. So in their own best interests they need help keeping to themselves and less hanging out at the birdbath. Bird feeders and baths certainly do attract them with easy access to free food, all they can eat. Feeding the birds this time of year has never been about needy birds. They have been feeding themselves for Ages without any outside help. I am guilty like other bird lovers. I love their activity, the colors, the singing, just the proximity, want them to nest in my birdhouses and they can fly; OMG they can fly. But they get along very well without our sunflower and thistle seed. Spring is a season of plenty and they don’t need us now. In January & February it gets sparse but this is the end of April. 
When asked about ‘Life’ people default straight to civilized culture and ignore the process; metabolism, replication, etc. Life is not unique to human beings. If there is anything sacred about life it would be in the process, not the vehicle. Birds may not identify with the process but they process the process perfectly. Every breath should remind us that life is both precious and fragile. It is not the ‘Yellow Brick Road’, more like swinging from vine to vine to vine (breath to breath). I you can’t make it to the next one then Fate has its way. As far as we know, you only get one go’round and it can be cut short regardless of species. 
Birds have no idea where they come from or understand that mortality is their fate. A Fight-or-Flght stress response is their only failsafe. They feed & drink, mate, reproduce and if they’re lucky their DNA gets passed on to succeeding generations. Too bad there are many millions of unlucky birds this year. I am sorry for that and  will miss the ones that no longer show up, whatever the reason. 
I can’t help making the bird-human analogy. We know where we come from and even though we work diligently at shunning our fate, fate is more persistent than we are diligent. I really like this rational, self-aware experience, don’t want to be stuck with Fight-or-Flight as an only option. I like the imagination-story connection both coming and going. I like waking up knowing my DNA is at work in generations that supersede me. I like knowing why this moment is so precious, it’s all there is. Everything happens in the present, in the moment. One needn’t be a guru to figure it out; ‘Here & Now’ subordinates both past and future. Birds don’t think at all but what is more common that people overthinking yesterday or sometime soon. 
I could beat up on the human species but I’ve done that and it doesn’t change anything. I can be both happy and informed in the present. Happy and sad can share the same space. I have lots of options and the window of possibility stays open. Good luck birds. You are in harm’s way and nothing I can do to help except shut down my feeder. Avoid strangers. Social distancing will literally be, for the birds; I can’t believe I said that.

WITH ONLY TWO EYES

  Imagine approaching a house, stepping up three steps to the porch and going to the door. You rattle the door knocker to announce yourself. After a short wait the door opens and a lady looks at you through the screen. With a short exchange you make your purpose known and step back slightly as she pushes open the screen door, an implied invitation to come in. She holds her door back and you navigate the rise of the threshold, reaching back to ease the screen door’s closing. 
The lady apologizes for the messy house as she leads you from the foyer through a lived-in dining room and into the kitchen. A girl child in a high chair is busy with a too-small spoon and a bowl of jello. She tells you the man you are looking for is in the back yard planting tulip bulbs. Outside the window you can see him on all fours, working the soil between the sidewalk and the house. With a universal nod and tilt of the head, Ann, her mane is Ann, she motions you let yourself out through the kitchen door. You step around and down, approaching the gardener. Without looking up he says, “Come on down and get your hands dirty.” 

When I sit down to write, whatever it is that I want to speak to, be it fiction or reality, instruction or persuasion it all falls into a category we call ‘Story’. It follows, by definition and by nature, that every story requires a Beginning, a Middle and an End. In the first two paragraphs I have put together a Beginning; creating a space in time with familiar imagery and plausible action. With each new bit of information the Beginning knits itself into an expanding backstory. Once enough puzzle pieces are in place the reader can grasp what is going on and follow the story track wherever it goes. The breach between the Beginning & the Middle is where the story takes off. Right here and now I am in that breach. 
When the story is straight forward with familiar elements, getting into the Middle (plot) is easy. But sometimes (often) my story moves on a tangent that is neither easy to follow nor well received in my 21st century culture. So a suitable Beginning might call for a boring lecture on the shortfalls of common sense and the folly of of faith in long held myths. I struggle with it. Sometimes I identify with Chicken Little, not with her story but with the response she gets from her peers.
Without merit certainly but I put myself in league with Astronomer & Astrophysicist Carl Sagan. In 1990 when NASA’s Voyager-1 sent back first photographs of the earth from nearly four billion miles in space he coined the phrase, “The Pale Blue Dot”. Until then the very best satellite image of earth was of a massive sphere, too great to appreciate with only two eyes. Sagan went on to describe Earth as “. . . a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.” Not that I belong in the same category with Sagan but we share that same sense of fragile awe and of feeling insignificant. Paraphrasing Sagan; ‘We are the residue from long ago exploded stars; breathing, sensing, replicating arrays of stardust.’ 
If, in my sample Beginning, I had addressed the lady at the door by name, asking where her famous astronomer husband was, and she replied, “Carl is out back planting tulips.” the brach between Beginning and Middle would have narrowed. I feel the need to shortcut the gap and hope the reader comes with me. My story speaks to Human hubris and how much we are like Stone Age people. Any paleolithic newborn magically transported (beamed up) to the 21st century with good parents and opportunity would prosper as well as any other modern child; same brain, same intellect (able to learn). That means we are no different intellectually than prehistoric hunter-gatherers. I’m afraid the glory of intelligence has been overrated. Our shared, dominant ‘Flight/Fight’ instinct has not been updated or demoted since they first started beating copper nuggets into spearpoints. Whatever gives rise to the notion of superiority comes not by way of divine intervention or ongoing evolution but by virtue of technology, accumulated knowledge and dietary advances over the last ten thousand years. 
I don’t know why I am hung up on the ‘Righteous Human’ myth but I keep coming back to chew on it like a dog digging up a buried bone. People are compelled (we can’t help ourselves) to believe in some kind of a moral standard. Religion, Politics & Nationalism all meet that need pretty well. That must be it; I can’t help myself. Sagan among other heroes have known that and still find their safe fit in a human niche. When I roll out my story it rings of conspiracy theory and Chicken Little and I really don’t want to do that. I spend far too much time wrestling with ideas that only I care about. What I believe really doesn’t matter beyond me. Human hubris; Carl Sagan knew that riddle was probably insoluble but he took the high road; kindness, optimism and a gentle touch. If I make it a priority I could do that too. I don’t have to prove that I’m ‘right’. I don’t have to be ‘right’. Even if I am, what difference does it make! If I am remembered at all, by anybody, it won't be for a theory. Be kind, do what you can and trust things to work out, maybe not on the first try but keep trying, and gentle is not a weakness. Just the opposite.

CASH 2 NELSON

  Johnny Cash wrote the song, Ragged Old Flag in 1974, a testament to his faith in the Country and the goodness of the American People. The year was marked with scandal (Watergate) and civic unrest (Viet Nam). There wasn’t much to feel good about, not unlike 2020. Cash portrayed the country in a heroic context, that of a tattered, battle weary American flag with its 200 year legacy of (justifiable) violence and (noble) war. Cash’s poetry waxes pious affection with the lines; “. . . and she’s getting threadbare and wearing thin, but she’s in good shape for the shape she’s in.” 
I am reminded of the song today probably because I saw my doctor yesterday for our annual wellness checkup. She spent a lot of time with me probing and taking notes. In the same way Cash progressed from battle to battle and war to war, she moved from system to system. It seems the wear & tear on my eyes and ears cannot be restored but I have the means to cope and so get by. Broken bones have healed but all bones lose their density and mass with time. I need exercise and a good diet just to minimize that loss. Blood work all falls within desired ranges but I am not more powerful than a locomotive or able to leap tall buildings with a single bound; Superman doesn’t live here anymore.  
I offered up the Johnny Cash line; I’m in good shape for the shape I’m in. She agreed, “Yes you are!” The difference here is that Cash’s flag is a metaphor and I am flesh and blood. The (Flag) metaphor is to justify if not exalt American hubris, all under the cloak of righteous self indulgence. That is a human failing with otherwise good people. What good is being #1 if you can’t indulge in some self worship and don’t exercise your power over #2 & #3? It’s not about one person or another, but about group dynamics. I aspire only to embrace the change I cannot avoid. Still I struggle with a self inflicted separation that comes with being uncomfortably, disrespectfully different. I think I understand why people, all people, why we dwell in the myth (mirror, mirror on the wall. . .) rather than upset status quo. 
I like Johnny Cash even now, almost 20 years after his passing. His music is compelling, voice like thunder and courage to take on controversy. On his best day he was every common man’s champion, speaking ‘Truth to Power’. Still on other days he could be unforgiving, cruel and selfish. But he is still a national hero and we don’t insult our heroes with the truth. 
There have been times, not so long ago, that I would speak to issues that begged for a voice. The terms, Right & Wrong carried a moral consequence that Correct & Incorrect did not. A mistake can be corrected but being ‘Wrong’ is a moral failure. Johnny Cash and other like him believed profoundly in the Rights & Wrongs of this life. I think it a hold-over illusion from the Middle Ages, serving only the powers that be. I didn’t make the rules but I can say, “I don’t thing so”; I can say, “Hell No.” 
Epictetus (Greek philosopher) an early Stoic wrote, “There is neither good nor evil except in the thinking.” In other words, the truth is whatever we agree on, whatever we say it is. Without human consensus there is neither good nor bad. Stoicism’s popularity and following have ebbed and flowed over time. It gets serious pushback from Christian religion as it negates universal truths. With no obligation to Christian dogma I find the Stoic’s focus on logic, reason and random chance more digestible than updated mythology. 
If required to employ a current philosopher-song writer to pick up where Cash left off, demonstrating how times and ideas change, I would default to Willie Nelson. He circumvents battle flags and a prideful culture writing, “Regret is just a memory, written on my brow; I’ve forgiven everything that forgiveness will allow, and there’s nothing I can do ab out it now.” 

TRUE LORDS & LADIES

  After wakeup and half an hour of predictable, patterned behavior my morning usually kicks off with random acts that can surprise even me. I know well enough when it’s time to reset my kahooten gear and grease a Van Allen belt. I do that by conducting the morning’s first bird census. I consider it a good omen when, out the kitchen window with my first cup of coffee, I see birds on my patio feeder. House Finches and Chickadees lend grace to the moment and Titmice even more. Gold Finches bump it up a notch and promise (Happy) for the rest of the day. But a woodpecker’s arrival is akin to God’s approval. Appearance can be deceiving. The Red-belly is big and gorgeous while the Flicker is big, more mottled with bright yellow shafts on the underside of their flight feathers. They are awesome. Even at that, the true Lords & Ladies of the woodpecker world are the smaller Hairy and Downies who slip in without fanfare. They seal the deal. 
Haven’t seen a Nuthatch since before the last big snow. Don’t know what that’s all about; they rank equal or above Titmice. Next one I see I’ll consult the local shaman or voodo wizard for an interpretation. The Kahooten thing is family (my kids) jargon, a nonsense word. At first it dealt with things that go vroom but expanded to mean anything with parts. It applies when you want to sound smart but fall short with the vocabulary; or, to trick an ignorant onlooker (someone who simply doesn’t know) into thinking you know something they don’t, or it passes as a subtle, secret code-word that doesn’t mean anything, just word play.
With my 2nd cup of coffee I must choose between continuing what I have begun (writing) or move on to something new. Right now, moving on sounds better than recalibrating a discombobulated kahooten. Housework isn’t very appealing but it is necessary and I feel it sneaking up on me.