A Reflection by Shanley Smith
From the jetway I imagined instead we flew to the Pampas–fertile wetlands equipped with something more than this grief. But we are bound for our home country just before the arrival of spring. Marc, my partner, had told me stories of Romanian in April and May. After the snow and rosehips thaw, the valley re-adopts its familiar shade of green.
The night before we leave, the muck of winter grass receives a fresh coat of snow. A foot drops in one night, more than any other day’s offering. An avalanche closes a road hours after we pass through it. Nature seems to cry: Please, stay. I’ll promise you beauty.
Instead, we return to my familiar: Michigan in the last throes of winter’s grey. The trees still stand naked. Their leaves won’t bloom for a few more weeks. If nothing else, it makes for easy birding, the feathers unable to hide behind leaves.
April arrives within a week of our landing. Marc spends the days identifying new species: ruby kinglet, titmouse, white-breasted nuthatch, eastern phoebe. When did they return? The robin begins the choir each morning, just after our jetlagged bodies wake at 5:30. How does one classify migratory? I need an extended definition, one that includes not only the robin’s flight pattern but also mine. Water fowl for instance by instinct, not choice, leave the Argentine sea.
On March twenty I received an email from my supervisor that I would return to the states due to Covid-19. Our fridge was full of wild garlic because we spent all of the prior day foraging. The snowdrops had just bloomed. A week prior I had moved into my partner’s apartment. The week before I held a pulpus rosehip between my thumb and index. Romania was just beginning to unthaw for me.
During the bird's breeding season we return to Michigan’s coastline, but I’m low in libido, and I’m years away from mustering the motivation to house a new human inside me. My entire mindset is quarantine.
We give ten minutes each morning to listen to the unfamiliar twilling. The birds court each other as if the world isn’t ending. The freckled woodpecker, a species we've never seen, harbors inside the old growth trees – oaks we think. Our house, a stilted A-frame built in the far corner of a sprawling neighborhood, begs for winged visitors. In miniature it would appear a classic birdhouse. Instead, it houses two ex-expats who wish they had wings. Maybe the house wishes itself a birdhouse. Maybe the birds envy us, though doubtful. Who needs thumbs or sentience when you have beaks and wings?
Throughout January, Marc and I waited for the mallards to leave the Jiu River. As February neared, we learned those stubborn creatures don’t ever leave. Year around they call the valley home. As weather warms and cools, they stay. Their partnerships, however, that’s a different story. Just before the babies hatch, the male leaves the female to rear offspring. It explains the strong mother one witnesses wrangling all seven ducklings in the pond. I’ve never witnessed dad at such a scene. Though he would blend in perfectly. After the breeding season, he leaves his partner and molts. When the feathers are shed he looks nearly identical to mommy.
The rest of the afternoon is whittled hours of playback. We dredge Cornell’s digital archives for their calls, diagnose the birds by projections and sizes of beaks. The speakers, so gifted, dupe me. For a moment I think the wings are inside. What company! The waxwing on the old walls and a titmouse’s low-low whistle on repeat. Marc’s video call with a friend also tricks me. A baby cries in the background of the phone’s screen. For a moment this friend and daughter join the scene and break the pretense of our “honeymoon” retreat. It’s Thursday. I cry over thoughts of everyone I can’t put arms around, including Henry’s baby. I’m mourning all caged birds, even the domesticated breeds. What creature (beside the dog) was meant for taming?
I think of the dog we left back in the Jiu Valley. If Fitz could catch our scent, surely his faith would let him walk on water, across the ocean, back to us. In reality, he hates swimming. In reality, he is tied to a tree.
We used to hike the hillside of the mountain daily. I’d let him bolt after the ducks and white-throated dippers. I cried protests, but my smile was still won when he dared to barrel through the creek. He never caught a bird, never will, he’s too slow to catch such flitting things.
The birds are neither for catching, nor for taming. Certainly not the ones we see. Not the robins or titmice or the phoebes. Still, I fantasize about waking to a canary perched above us, if only to have another captive as a compatriot, a songbird to cry it’s poisonous to stay, but I hear the pampas are nice in spring.
Shanley Smith resides in Holland, Michigan where she spends her days writing, teaching, advocating for the environment, and walking her dog. She proudly serves as Dimly Lit's head editor and founder.