Birds

Part 1 – Away

It turns out, I also write when I swim. It’s the movement. A slight challenge to not get the notebook wet though.

I am in Massachusetts visiting my father who has terminal cancer. This is also a holiday. My mind has felt scattered across multiple places and disparate times these past few years, the most terrifying of which is the future. ‘Blindboy’ talks about ‘purposeless distress’ in his podcast (1). His followers had requested advice on how to cope with the news these days. So he produced, ‘A mental health plan for when the News is overwhelming’. To put it very briefly and simply (and not doing it justice), he suggests reducing time checking the news and social media. Instead, focusing on compassion; for self and others – to minimise overwhelm wherever possible, to stay functional, to maintain an informed and caring relationship with the wider world^[1]

I wish I had the time to listen to all of his podcast episodes, there are so many. Aside from comparing Star Trek and mackerel appreciation, another highlight for me has been the very moving episode, ‘Intrapersonally Speaking’ – he mentions using excessive language about oneself due to how adults have unfairly described you as a child, when they should have been helping.

The episode about the news, and essentially about self-care, also really struck a chord with me; what’s the point in succumbing to despair, to what extent can I choose to not focus on it, in order to be productive and effective at work, look after myself and my children, maintain connections with family and friends? Especially on holiday, surely – my chance to recharge, to some extent, and to spend precious time with my father, to some extent. I decided to set myself a challenge in preparation for this post: To focus on one place and one time; where I am right now, at this time. Also, to use all of my own words and try not to retreat into others’ words, as I often do. So far I’ve only used a few of somebody else’s words. Not bad.

Swim… Write… some kind of hawk hovers right above my head – I cup my hands around my face as I look up at it – the first cloudy day since we got here, yet my eyes still crease against the glare… in contrast to the quenching water on my skin.

Swim… Write… Swim… I really want to see a hummingbird, apparently they were close to the house yesterday (my Dad has a nectar feeder out for them) – they are one of my favourite birds; so small, fast, resilient, iridescently beautiful. And they migrate over a staggering distance for such a little bird; over the whole of the Rocky Mountains, between South America and Canada. I saw loads in Colorado, zipping around and hovering with their implausibly rapid, dream-like, humming wings – that feels like a lifetime ago, but it’s been less than 10 years. For some reason I start thinking about the wrens at home – very different to hummingbirds, yet sharing similar characteristics; bold and wee. Vigorous. They seem more real, somehow.

Swim… Write… Swim… Write... a stork silently glides overhead… or is it a heron? I’m not sure which are more likely in North America. I’ll check later. The red cardinals come so daringly close… as do the gigantic butterflies; almost the size of some of the birds. Many of the birds and butterflies in the US seem so huge and ostentatious as compared to their British counterparts. The American robin, for example, takes the red breast to another level.

Swim… Write… Swim… Write… I seem to be writing more and more these days about – and during – the times I’m away from my dog and with my Dad. About how I grapple with separation as I brace myself for the impending, permanent separation; my father’s death. My relationship with him has felt on the brink of permanent separation too many times already; when he went off sailing the world for nearly a year, and after that… left us for good. Plus, several near fatal accidents and health scares. We have been physically separated from each other for much of my life – him working away, then living away. It seems Psychodography started, in part, as a means of coping with that separation from one of the most influential people in my life. Influential, predominantly in the sense that I choose not to live how he has, and simultaneously concede how similar we are.

Swim… Write… Swim… ONE PLACE. ONE VOICE. ENOUGH. My mind ponders over ‘Free Solo’ (2), a documentary about a death-defying climber. We watched it last night. I fixate on the moment he recollected his mother saying to him, ‘good enough is not enough’. Explains a lot.

Swim… Write… watching the not so ostentatious – yet quirky – sparrows hopping around and scratching the grass, chattering to each other; reminds me of ‘Wild Love’ (3) starring Matt Berry, written by the legendary Bob Mortimer. We watched that the night before. It’s hilarious! Especially his ridiculous terms for the birds of paradise e.g. ‘Trouser Pigeon’. We also watched ‘What We Do in the Shadows’; also Matt Berry, with his equally entertaining fellow actors – including Natasia Demetriou, who is magnificent! I like to witness my father’s sceptical expression, as if unsure whether he’s allowed to laugh at something so absurd. He soon erupts into belly laughs with the rest of us, but that initial response reveals so much.

Swim… I can’t believe ‘Frankenstein’ – my new name for Frankie the dog – killed one of the chickens! She’s insatiable.

Stop

Part 2 – Home

Back to walking. A damp early autumn day, still warm enough to not wear a coat, but with the threat of more thunderstorms. The hint of a crisp breeze brushes my cheek.

Last week I swear I could sense a sigh of relief from the ground beneath my feet. The rambling tree roots perhaps. As the first rain signalled an end to the oppressive heat wave.

I have a few rare hours to myself today, to do my own thing: Walk with my dog. Meet other people walking with their dogs. Listen ~ Look ~ Feel ~ Write.

As I stroll into the open expanse of gently sloping hydrated green ground, an old greyhound spots me and immediately ambles over to say hello – not at all at an intrusive pace, but with just enough focus and interest and motivation to have the effect of me feeling singled out, special. It stops next to me. Stands side on. Patiently, undemandingly, waits for a pat. What a welcome to the park! Followed by a symbiotically tender greeting. The dog’s name, I discover, is ‘Willy’.

I’m looking and listening for birds though, to continue my bird theme, so I say my goodbyes and walk on. Nomar is busy sniffing the area, tail spiralling and zig-zagging, as usual. I rest on a bench in a small steep patch of woodland. A perfectly camouflaged (some would say ‘plain’) female blackbird tiptoes over the mulchy leaves, trying not to be seen, or heard. Voiceless. I feel honoured, and almost like I’ve been let in on a secret, that such an inconspicuous bird is the first one I see. And I watch her as she disappears.

“The air is wet with sound” (4; I couldn’t resist borrowing from Tom Waits!). I can hear a plethora of birds, though cannot see any of them. I wish I had better bird-call knowledge – I did pay attention to what the ‘forest ladies’ taught me at the woodland group, but my memory alludes me when it comes to such facts and details. I picked up a few handy phrases from them to help remember some of the bird calls, I must ask them for more. I grew up surrounded by nature and know so little factual knowledge about it. Intrinsically though, I know nature.

My mind meanders back to the last time I had a few hours to myself, only a few months ago in Provincetown, Massachusetts, on my summer holiday: I moseyed into town on a borrowed bike, made a beeline for a second-hand bookshop, then the smoothie shack, then a bench in front of the Town Hall. Once the town cryer had finished his bell-ringing and his speech about the Family Pride Parade happening later that day, he signed off with, ‘God save the queens’. I attempted to settle into reading my new book about philosophy and symbolism (5). It was hot and busy with noisy, colourful people also on holiday – I couldn’t exactly get irritated by this, seeing as I was one of them, albeit not so noisy and not so colourful. I wonder why I wasn’t wearing my peacock t-shirt which I bought in P-Town a few years ago. My brain strained to get my mind around what a “symbolic matrix” means, which apparently can happen between human and animal, as well as between exterior and interior, public and personal, language and speech… I was gratefully distracted by the busker next to me playing ‘Little Wing’ by Jimi Hendrix. I found myself gazing, almost in a trance, at his tiny ratty dog cuddled up inside a blanket in a pram. The busker offered his dog a small tub of water after each song and whispered tenderly to it. Soon, however, his voice altered towards irritation, as the dog had apparently given a signal (unbeknownst to me) that it wanted to get out of the pram. The little dog then had a run around on the grass close by, the busker chuntering under his breath.

A flash of white. Magpies swooping from tree to tree, chirping (try-to-log-bird-with-sound-in-memory-store); the varying pace of the short sharp intermittent chirps reminds me of morse code. A robin has been quietly milling around the exposed base of a fallen tree right next to me, while I’ve been distracted by the brazen magpies and their urgent “chak-chak-chak”. I just spotted it out of the corner of my eye. Now it’s gone.

Why do I not describe the smells, as I write in my head? There’s an autumn woodland scent I suppose; too intricate to put into words. Earthy… obviously!

Yes! ‘Jenny Wren’, so fast and loud… I was sharing with my newish counsellor recently that wrens remind me of my daughter… she whizzes by, settles on a small branch and erupts into song. JOY.

Ah, I remember that one – ‘my toe hurts Betty’ – wood pigeon. So moany.

Where are the woodpeckers?

That’s it for today, it seems unusually quiet in the trees now… as compared to when I’m in a hurry and resisting the desire to linger and listen. Because if I do I will be late for children, or clients, or supervisors. Everything seems paused_ as if inviting me to do the same.

Hardly a birdwatching attempt that would even come close to the efforts of Birdgirl (www.birdgirluk.com); who, by the age of 17, became the youngest person to see half of the worlds birds. And ok, so I used several of other people’s words and ideas and mentioned a few of my recent viewing and listening habits, and wandered off away from the present moment at various times – it’s an improvement from the usual sprawling quotes, though I have to admit I didn’t quite succeed in my challenge.

But hey, good enough. I’m only human.

^[1] Since posting this last month I have just listened to the Blindboy podcast episode again about how to cope with the news being overwhelming. The level of detail he goes into about whatever subject he is focused on, whether it’s serious or comedic, is addictively engaging and entertaining. His broad and diverse research is mind boggling! Anyway, I wanted to draw attention to what he has to say about boundaries – both for oneself and in relation to others and social media – as well as the misinterpretation of why ostriches stick their heads in the sand. Well worth a listen, when the birds are quiet.

© 2022 Psychodography Blog

REFERENCES

1. Blindboy (2017-present). The Blindboy Podcast http://podcast https://shows.acast.com/blindboy
2. Chai Vasarhelyi, E & Chin, J (Directors). (2018). Free Solo. (Film; DVD). National Geographic Documentary Films.
3. Wild Love (2015). BBC Two.
4. Waits, T. (2002). Watch Her Disappear. ANTI- Records.
5. Kaushik, R. (2019). Merleau-Ponty between Philosophy and Symbolism:  The Matrixed Ontology.  Suny Press Contemporary Continental Philosophy.