The Sound of Birds

Neoma

I sit on a white, plastic bench on my back porch.  There was tranquility in being outside of my house, even in an area as close as my backyard.  I watched as the wind whistled through the maple leaves in the tree that stood right outside my brother’s window.  I remember loving the idea of owning a maple tree since I lived on Maple Street.  There was a specific sense of satisfaction that came from that.  I watched as the butterflies fluttered around the butterfly bush next to the stark white shed that contrasted against the rotting wooden fence.  I remember the calming outdoor smell—a mix of the pink flowers from the bushes that covered the perimeter of my yard and fresh cut grass.

That summer, a bird, a robin I’m pretty sure (we always had robins in our backyard), nested in the awning of our porch.  Every day, I was infatuated with listening to her baby birds chirping while their mother was away, waiting for her to come home.  She always did. I singled out that there were four of them due to the four distinct tweeting voices.  As a child, you tend to connect yourself with other young animals.  I fantasized about the mama bird feeding and taking care of her four young babies and identifying that with my mom and her four children. I loved the idea of a happy little bird family right outside my home.  I considered them a part

A bird swooped by in my peripheral vision, a blue jay, I later learned, to be exact.  It landed its black talons on the white, swirly detail of my porch column. I observed in awe taking in every detail of the bird—the crisp cool-toned blue spread across its body, its white, fluffy belly, the black outlines that accented its features like black eyeliner.  Blue was my favorite color. It reminded me of the sky and my Aunt Jenny’s pool.

I remember the day I almost drowned in that pool.  I was too little to know how to swim at the time, but I took off the pool floaties I’d wear.  I figured I didn’t need them if I was just going to sit on a pool chair. However, my foot slipped, and I collided against the membrane of the water, but I broke right through.  I remember the way everything looked as I went under, the way the water clouded everything, even the sunlight; the way my lungs filled with water.  In retrospect, if I drowned in that moment, I would have died peaceful, innocent, unscathed.  My older brother ripped me out of the water’s hands that held me down.  I coughed up the fear of dying and cried. That experience still didn’t deter me from visiting Aunt Jenny’s.

Weekends at Aunt Jenny’s house brought me this unknown peace that at the time I couldn’t comprehend.  You can’t really grasp how bad your childhood is at that age.  Aunt Jenny’s pool cleansed all the sins my house placed on me and kept me away from them for a short period of time.  She’d wash all the chlorine from my hair as we played salon in her bathroom sink. The shampoo would kill the chemicals and kept them from drying out my soul. She’d scrub the dead skin from my body in the shower to keep my skin fresh and smooth.  She erased all the self-hatred from my mind when she’d say and I’d repeat, “Don’t hate me ‘cause I’m beautiful.”  Back then I did believe that I was beautiful. Everything used to be beautiful, even the blue jay.

In the moment it took me to take in the image of the blue jay, it had already flown up into the nest of the baby birds.  The mama robin had flown away a little while earlier, but birds were birds.  In the eyes of a naive five-year-old, all birds were friends.  The sound of the birds chirping crescendoed and like a rippling song. On the beat each little voice droned out. On the beat—the first baby bird is penetrated by the blue jay’s beak, just as my body would be penetrated by my brother over the years to come.  Year by year my voice is drained.  On the beat—the second baby bird is struck, just as my body would be bruised and scarred by my mother over the span of a decade.  Year by year my voice is drained. On the beat—the third baby bird bleeds, just as my wrists and legs bled when I needed a release from my PTSD.  I scream inside but no sound is released. On the beat—the fourth baby bird cries, just as I cried over and over on the shower floor, water caressing me, letting me know I am safe as my alcoholism consumes me and suicidal thoughts infiltrate my mind.  My voice is dead. The blue jay flies away—guilt free—as my father left the last time I saw him when I was eight.  Silence.

I think about that moment a lot—the silence I heard when the blue jay flew away, the naivety of not knowing what happened, the innocence of a five-year-old’s mind.  I remember the way my grandmother broke the news to me. How she explained that some birds are bad and hurt other birds, sometimes little baby birds.  I never enjoyed the sight of blue jays from that time on.  I think about that moment a lot—the way I cried, the empathy I felt for the baby birds, the empathy I felt for their mother who I watched come home to her dead children, the sounds she made.  I think about that moment a lot as I sit on my back-porch bench, cigarette in hand, chemicals in my lungs, listening to the sound of birds chirping.

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