Chapter 2 The Birds
The picture of the blonde angel sprawled on Jake’s bed pops into my head as I knead the dough for another batch of bread.
I hope she is okay. I weave a wonderful life for the angel.
One that is full of friends, excitement, and gaiety.
Her life is magnificent. Smiling, I fill a box of Paczki.
Sprinkling the sweet, fried dough with powdered sugar.
Inhaling the homey aroma, I think, Why can’t this be enough?
On my way home midafternoon, I walk through Central Park and do the only thing that brings color to my world: I watch the birds. As always, I have John Foster’s guidebook Birds of Central Park tucked into my pocketbook. I’ve spotted some species he meticulously describes in his book.
I look for new birds on each of my walks as well as the regulars, through the ever-changing seasons, year after year.
Some birds remain in the park, others pass through on their way to far-off wintering or breeding grounds.
These solitary walks are the high point of my day.
In the park, I’m connected as if I belong here, among the birds and the trees.
For the hundredth time, I wish I had binoculars as I could add a lot more birds to my life list if I had even a cheap pair.
My fingers idly rub the spine of the guidebook; it has given me my connection to this special world.
When I was seventeen, I stumbled upon Birds of Central Park in the NYC Library and that changed everything.
Finally, our location across from the most famous urban park in the world helped me.
The book gave me a purpose and a distraction that went well beyond me getting lost in the pages of a book.
John Foster’s guide showed me how to walk and commune with nature.
While my parents and the customers at the bakery might see me every day, they never see the real me, the person who has dreams and hopes and too many funny comments.
Only John Foster and the birds and the trees see me and feel me.
I write down in his book not only bird observations, but my thoughts and feelings that go well beyond the birds.
He invites me to share, and share I do. He is a good listener.
Now I had John Foster and young Ernest for company, what more could I need?
As I wander through the park, I scan the tree limbs, trying to peek through the leaves and peer into the low shrubs to spot one of my feathered friends.
It’s mid-September, and there are still migratory birds flying south, stopping to rest up and put on necessary fat to see them through to their faraway wintering grounds. Oh, to be wild and free.
John Foster explains that you must first listen for the bird and then get your eyes and ears to triangulate to where the bird should be sitting.
Once you spot the bird, you use your binoculars, if you have a pair, to bring the bird into focus.
His descriptions of the nesting habits of these feathered friends, as he calls them, as well as what each bird eats and where it winters and summers, is a secret world unto itself.
A world I have the magic key to enter. Describing the purple finch, he writes its proclivity to build nests on any outside, manmade structure, which the park has several of leads you to look up into the nooks and crannies of the carousel or Wollman’s rink to locate them.
He encourages readers to find the secret world of finches on these buildings that are part of our world, but they have purloined a piece for themselves to use in their world.
When I first took the book out from the library, I kept my dictionary nearby to help me understand many of the words he used, but in time, John Foster expanded my mind to include his fancy words as well as birds.
People walk through Central Park every day, but it’s only those of us who know about this secret world of lovely, chittering, feathered beings that get to peek at it.
If I ever meet him, which could happen because the book jacket says he lives in NYC, I will thank him and may even dare to hug him.
His book has been a lifeline for me during my long and lonely teenage years, which now are stretching right into my twenties.
He explains in the book, “We come from nature, and we all would be much better off if we walked more in nature instead of viewing nature as a separate thing apart from humans.”
I would not have survived living in the city without my connection to the world of flora, fauna, and the birds of Central Park.
I discovered a peace within the park that I never found anywhere else, except at Seaside Park’s ocean beach back in Bridgeport, where I could feel the power of my favorite myth, the story of Halcyon and Ceyx.
John Foster helped me put words around the peace I found in nature and made my connection seem normal.
He opened my eyes to the passing of the seasons, and the migration of birds north to south and back again.
Giving me an understanding of how living by the rhythm and cycles of nature is better for the human condition than the artifice of clocks and our obsession with small increments of time—minutes instead of seasons and millennia.
He woke me up, giving me a thin rope that tethered me a bit to this world.
Thanks to him and Central Park, I am alive.
Stopping at my favorite bench in the Ramble section of the park, I sit and immediately spot a bird poking its head out from under the witch hazel bush with its yellow spidery flowers, I note a yellow circle around a bright eye and a gray head: a white-eyed vireo.
It looks right at me with an inquisitive cock of his head and gives its distinctive three-part song.
My bird bible tells me he is only looking for insects to forage for on the ground and isn’t making eye contact with the likes of me.
But that doesn’t stop the surge of happiness from filling my chest, and this one time I dismiss John’s teachings and instead believe that the little, gray-headed bird with its yellow sides and two white wing bars is looking right at me and acknowledging my presence.
The bird takes a few more hops, then disappears back under the shrub. I am seen, even if it is only by a bird.
My eyes travel from the bush to a couple strolling by. They lean in towards each other, murmuring and holding hands, they’re in their own magical world.
Oh, to have someone to tell your thoughts and feelings to and have them care about what you say, and more importantly, what you feel.
When I was young, my parents had little interest in me, only making sure I was eating, sleeping, growing, and doing all the right things.
They never wondered what I was feeling or thinking.
They are of the generation or maybe of the culture that believes parents must feed and clothe their children, teach them the importance of hard work, and anything more is unnecessary and may actually spoil them.
Spoiling a child is the worst thing a parent can do and is why my father rails against all the “spoiled American children” like Jake, who take their freedom and good fortune for granted.
My parents decidedly do not spoil me, quite the opposite, but I don’t blame them.
They are trying to cope; they don’t have the time or energy to focus even a tiny bit of attention on me unless I force their hand like I did this morning.
My mother is trying to survive her MS, a degenerative and debilitating disease, with as little attention or complaint as possible.
Despite her stoicism, many things fall to my father.
And the stress of my grandmother’s constant threats saps his energy even further.
How many times has she threatened to throw us out over these intervening years?
Too many to count. They don’t need me dreaming and wishing for something more.
Glancing up at the sky, I realize the sun is getting low and I need to head home to help with dinner.
Mama has been having some good days lately, but I should be home helping and not staring up at the sky and the trees, dreaming and hoping.
My father’s voice rings in my head: “There is no time for hope, only hard work.” I don’t know why I can’t do better and just accept my life, but a vice tightens around my chest when I think of these endless days with no color or hope sprinkled in.
I sputter, Dammit, that can’t be all there is to live for?
Pressing my hand against my mouth to hide my smile, I look around for any passersby who may have heard me. Instead, I spot the vireo peeking out at me and I chuckle. Feeling downright defiant, I don’t even cross myself.
I sit for five more minutes and am rewarded with first the raspy call of the belted kingfisher, and then I triangulate his call, and I spot him.
Perching on a branch with his blue-gray little body, his ragged crest makes his head look too large for his body.
He is an odd-looking little bird, but he is my favorite.
A bubble of happiness expands in my chest. Maybe God has a sense of humor and doesn’t mind my blasphemous inner voice. Wouldn’t that be something?
The kingfisher was the first bird I documented in my guide-book, which contains a whole Life List section full of blank pages, to help one start building their list of bird sightings.
I don’t get paid for working in the bakery, as that is a family obligation, so it took me until I was eighteen to save up enough pin money to buy my own copy of the book.
That was my one luxury since I have few other needs—no iPhone, no makeup, no jewelry.
Six months later, I finally dared make my first entry on the blank, crisp white pages in the Life List section.
It took spotting my first kingfisher to get me to mark down the sighting on those lovely virgin pages. It was the sign I needed.
My connection to the kingfisher goes back to seventh-grade English class when I first read the myth of Halcyon and Ceyx.
Princess Halcyon was married to the mortal king Ceyx and their love for each other was known throughout the realms. Because of their pridefulness and blasphemy, one day when Ceyx was sailing to Delphi, a great storm capsized his boat and as he was drowning, he begged Poseidon to bring his body to his wife’s arms. Halcyon, meanwhile, had the God of Dreams tell her about the awful fate of her husband, and she rushed to the coast where she found Ceyx’s body and immediately threw herself into the blackness of the sea.
Amazed by her love and devotion, the gods decided to save her.
They transformed her and Ceyx into kingfisher birds so they could be together forever.
But Zeus ordered that Halcyon must lay her eggs in winter, nesting always near the spot where she found Ceyx’s body.
This was impossible for the two birds, as the waves kept sweeping away the eggs.
The kingfishers were heartbroken and desperate.
Zeus finally took pity on the lovers and ordered the gods to give them fourteen days of pleasant weather around the winter solstice, so they could keep their eggs safe.
This story of love and commitment sustained me.
It spoke to me of the need to keep trying and never give up.
It convinced me that we all have our Ceyx or our Halcyon out there somewhere, and we will find them when the gods decide it is time.
This was when my dream made its first appearance and that comforted me as well.
It has sustained me while I wait on the gods.
After seeing the kingfisher that very first time, I realized I needed to do what John Foster preached in the book: “One needs to track and make note when and where they see their first bird of a particular species, so you can hold on to the memory.” So, I wrote down belted kingfisher and described the park that day.
The weather, the sun shining down, the exact location of the bird.
Now I’m up to sixty lifers. That is what John Foster calls this list of specific identified birds.
There are over two hundred species of birds that visit the park, so I have a long way to go on my list, but that gives me a reason to get up in the morning when there isn’t any other compelling reason to rise.
A surge of pride makes me straighten my shoulders, but almost as soon as that happens, I deflate.
How I wish I had someone to share it with.
While I love him dearly and he is a good listener, John Foster isn’t the best conversationalist and Ernest is even less so.
I tuck my guidebook into my industrial-sized bag that holds my umbrella, wallet, and the other items one needs to walk the city streets and hurry home. I take a deep breath, and the air feels alive and energizing. As I walk the path getting closer to home, my feet drag and my lungs constrict.
Well, I think as I step off the elevator, at least my father’s story of the morning’s situation will remind my parents I’m still alive and breathing.
I pause outside our door and steal a glance at Jake’s door. A picture of the plush hallway with the rich carpet and the muted lights flashes through my mind, followed by his bedroom. I wish I had touched his quilt. It looks like it would feel like a cloud.
“Hmm.” A dreamy smile tugs at my lips as I turn the knob.
“Mama, I’m home.”