Birdsong

Thursday, 9 April 2020 – Day 17

The morning was still. Blue skies overhead with a warm orange morning sun softly rising over my shoulder.

I called out to Pork Chop, “come here, girl!” She’s on a leash and knows she’s on a leash but whenever we play this little game she springs up on all fours and prances like Bugs Bunny, jumping close to me and pretending that we are playing. Then she jets off with her weird little run where she Goose steps like an old Prussian soldier.

I’ve given up on the sidewalks. Streets are faster because Porks doesn’t need to stop and sniff every bush. We walk together at pace with a little sway.

Most of the sounds I hear in the morning now are birdsongs. Ahead is a Scrub Jay, darting along the ground. He’s a bright cobalt blue on top and soft grey beneath. He’s more colorful than most, I assume he’s young. Their usual call is distinct, almost like a crow’s panic call but higher in register: a squealch-kaw which they repeat until you get sick of hearing it. But they also have a weird growl they make at times, again like a crow but this one is deeper, more menacing, whereas the crow’s clicks are higher. A crow’s growl was the sound used for the Predator’s clicks from the eponymous movie.

Further along, no cars, no people. There are people here, just none outside. Everyone is home for now but the day’s going to be warm and soon everyone will be out. I understand why places like Spain and China has to enforce progressively more restrictive lockdowns. Yesterday was a nice day and my suburban street was alive with people, walking their dogs and families in groups. I didn’t go down to the city to report on the masses there but I would guess that Tacoma’s waterfront will have tons of people today – especially hilariously the people who have suddenly taken up jogging.

I don’t mind the joggers, as long as they stay away from me and run down the street. I have a defense mechanism as well, Pork Chop loves joggers, she wants to lick their faces. So, if one starts running near me I don’t reign her in, I let her wiggle at them and jump. I’ve had them yell at me. I laugh. I call it “anti-social distancing”. But honestly, fuck you if you can’t bother to jog six feet away from me in the suburbs. I don’t live in London or NYC where people are right on top of each other all the time. We have shit-tons of space, get on up out of my personal space, you butthole. Think of it like getting in a few extra steps. Supposedly you’re exercising for your health, right?

Porks and I walk down the dry stream bed and reach the footbridge. No one in sight and just birds calling all around. They are loud too. A Blackbird calls, their distinct song louder than others in the area. Off in the distance I can hear a woodpecker tapping out a paradiddle. Here I stop, I want to catch sight of this bird. He’s been here in my forest for a week now, or at least I’ve just noticed him this week. But it seems he is always far off, like today.

Pork Chop is impatient. She doesn’t care about birbs only about sniffing poops. She pulls on the leash.

As I cross the bridge I get a web across the face. Just a single strand which seems to drape across the brim of my hat, my eyebrow, and tangles ticklishly in my beard.

I can’t get the web off me. Just one line, stuck on my face but I don’t know where it starts or ends. It’s the first sign of spring. When the baby spiders all hatch and launch themselves into the breeze to find new hunting grounds. In a small clearing at the end of the bridge I see their silver strings glistening and swaying in the sunlight, hundreds of them, all going the same direction.

I wonder if the spider knows what it’s doing? Does it take a leap of faith? Surely it’s all just instinct; climb up that branch, feel the breeze, rope off, and leap into the air. But there could be a moment of sheer exhilaration as it feels the wind pick up, then one by one releases his grip and opens his arms to float on the breeze. Can a spider close it’s eyes and feel one with the universe?

Then the dark thoughts creep in. Surely the planet is breathing a sigh of relief as human activity is locked down all over the world. Every living creature in this forest seems more alive than ever before. And what would happen if there were no humans? The other mammals would go on. All opf the birds, insects, molds, and spiders would keep living. The fish would be fine, the corals would come back. We can already measure the impact that the lockdown is having on places: less flying, driving, buying, wasting, means that we see air quality improve in many cities during this pandemic.

I don’t want to anthropomorphize the planet, give it any intent, much less a mind. I don’t believe that the planet made this virus to kill humans. This was bound to happen, statistically. Given the number of people and how we are ever encroaching on wilder and wilder places, eventually a virus would make the jump from animal to human like so many have done before. But this virus would have to be much more robust – this virus has not only spent time in bats but also penguins and we know it can infect cats as well. It would be able to last for hours and days on hard surfaces, on plastic – and be able to keep jumping. It would have a much higher infection rate because humans would have no antibodies and it would spread through social contact – ironically one of our greatest strengths and the biggest evolutionary advantage of our species.

I am not minimizing the pain people feel from the death of a loved one. I don’t want to discount the fear that many of us feel. I am afraid. I am terrified of losing my daughter, my sister, mother, and my friends. I think I just want to make sense of this and in a way, the fact that it’s random, that it was eventually bound to happen, lets me let go of some of that fear. I can’t explain why other than maybe if it was intentional it would make me angry, give me something to focus on. But since I think that we were a random mutation and that this was a random mutation – and that we are just doing what us random mutations do – I can still be afraid, want to protect myself and others from this, but it all feels less depressing because it’s just something that happened. Like an earthquake, I can’t stop the shaking. I can only help others, be part of a community, and rebuild after.

Qq