Bird Song

Pardon me if this post gets a bit Millery, but if you know me and my literary tendencies then you shouldn't be too surprised.

I woke up wide awake after two hours of sleep.  I had been dreaming that I was snorting Vicodin with an old flame when I looked out the window and saw a line of cars as far as the eye could see that needed to be parked.  That panic, that dread is what woke me up shaking.  The room was hot, and I was possibly still feeling the effects from the beer-vending Pepsi machine in the basement.

There was no hope in falling back asleep.  I was too annoyed with myself for something I had not done the night before.  Sometimes I am quite a mumbling nervous cold bowl of soup.  I trudged downstairs and had my free breakfast of staleflakes, white toast with raspberry jam, orange juice, and coffee.  I breakfasted with two fellow Americans, an accountant and an Internet business owner who lives in Zurich.  Most of their conversation was about how they hated taxes.  The accountant couldn't keep his eyes off his I-Pad.

I needed to take a walk.  The rain was steady and the wind strong.  The remnants of a hurricane were on the way.  But I needed to take a walk to keep from kicking myself anymore.

The pavement was wet and like glass, like wet glass.  It reminded me of the steps in front of the Stewart Center at Purdue.  When wet, they turned to ice.  When icy, they turned to impossible.  The streets of Dublin are the same, and with my Bambi legs, there was little hope for me, but I needed to keep moving.  My mind was occupied with trying to keep my umbrella right-side-out and staying as balanced I could on the ice-slick pavement.  It made for some good meditation.  That and the physical exercise of walking improved my mood immensely.

I had set off with no direction.  Rarely I do.  I found myself in the retail district walking south.  It was about 9am on a Sunday morning and between that and the weather, no one was out.  I heard a tourist in passing say, "Here's the Dublin weather."  The shops were all locked up and dim.  It was hard not to window shop when everyone was out.  I saw a nice pair of brown shoes for 60 Euro.  It's a good thing I don't think I'd ever pay that much for shoes or I would have waited around until the store opened.

My wandering took me to St. Stephen's Green, a cute little park in the middle of the city where I had been the day before.  On Saturday the sun was warm and shining down on St. Stephen's Green.  The green was nearly covered entirely by couples, mostly young couples, lazing in the sun, baking in the sun, eating, drinking, and napping on one another.  They looked like albino seals on a green beach.  Everyone looked happy and relaxed.  I felt indifferent if not a little empty.  After a loop around the park, I went for a coffee and some reading.

Sunday was a different story.  The park was nearly empty.  There were a few runners puffing on the pavement and somehow not slipping and sliding through the park.  I shuffled my way along.  I had walked over a mile and my tired and sleep deprived legs were growing tired.  I stopped by the tree covered pond and looked at the pigeons.  I had never looked so closely at pigeons.  Not only were they every shade of gray from black to white, some had some blue-green and purple on the back of their necks.  Their little toes were red and worked quickly to get places slowly.  They weren't afraid of me and they got quite close.  Their little red eyes blinked sideways at me, their heads twitched and they looked somewhere else, for something to peck at, for a drink of water.  They had a simple life.

I stared at another bird that was standing on a large rock.  He looked tired and disheveled.  An Einstein bird that looked like a small albatross, webbed feet and all.  Those feet were a ghost white, translucent, unhealthy looking.  I stared at this bird for possibly longer than I stared at the pigeons.  What the hell was this?  Then it dawned on me:  it's a seagull.  A drunk seagull.

The edge of the pond meandered, and I followed it to the other side.  There an old man with a bag was feeding the birds.  The pigeons swarmed and ducks honked and the seagulls screamed.  I laughed.  The old man smiled at me.  Suddenly the world was quite beautiful and absolutely everything was okay.  They were birds, real birds, and their were thousand.  This isn't some kind of metaphor. Goddamn, this is real.