Covid Letters, No. 9

A letter from Erika Veurink, resident of beleaguered New York City.  I love this glimpse into Brooklyn and kids and domestic routines. And birds.

Thank you for sharing.

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The Principle of Waiting

I watch an empty Brooklyn through rain stained windows. Their cloudiness, the way they percolate the early light, strikes me as charming. This morning, all I hear beside near constant ambulances are bird calls. I used to only notice their ecstatic yelps on those weekend afternoons when it felt like the whole world was conspiring to orchestrate an adequate soundtrack for the joy that it was managing to contain. Birds have been pulled from the chorus and thrust under the spotlight to perform optimism. I give in and pull back my half-hearted blackout curtains to witness the start of another impossible day. It never occurred to me to wish for an unobstructed view or to name their shrill songs. In recent weeks, it feels there is no shortage of things that never occured to me. “That’s what I’m going to do first thing when this is over,” my best friend explained to me over the phone, “get my windows cleaned.” 

The green sofa under the windows is where I’ve taken up residency. Reading has been a small salvation, along with long phone calls and the classical music station. When I tire of saving my life, I flip over my book and birdwatch. I study how the birds turn their heads quizzically on the roof of my neighbor’s apartment, shrug, and lift off. I memorize their landings. I take their loose “V” formations as a sign. I’m willing to take anything as a sign. Their migration patterns could be hidden messages. I wonder if the silent city they returned to scares them. 

One of the boys I nanny is studying birds this year in school. We are in constant dialogue about them–on the ferry, walking home, at the park. They surround us. Now we watch them from the window, distracted from online schoolwork. They land and look into the glass of the apartment before hopping in a circle and disappearing. On a walk later, we saw ducks mill aimlessly on the water. Their honks echoed through the canal. They seemed hauntingly unhurried. His year long project is on blue jays, specifically. We spent a Tuesday afternoon filling in his final sketch with shading and gathering facts about the species. “Their habitat?” I asked, as I offered up four shades of blue colored pencils. “The sky,” he said, “but mostly their nests.”

As he filled out the left wing, I started researching on my own. If you crush the feather of a blue jay into a powder, it’s brown. It’s only blue due to light scattering, which allows the passing of all colors through the feather beside one. They are highly susceptible to viruses, but die mostly from predators or flying into man made objects. Mid-March is the start of their mating season, which explains why they are slicing the sky constantly. Blue jays are a species clever enough to understand what’s called the Principle of Waiting. They watch. They let time pass. And when the seeds have been sowed or the remains of lunch left unattended, they swoop in to gather their feast.

I feel my unrest in my shoulders, but blue jays wear their emotions on their crests. A raised crest indicates aggression. Flat against the head means contentedness. Splayed in every direction, like a crown, means the bird is concerned. I watch the bushes in the park for flashes of blue. I look for crowns. I want to be visited by fear. I wish a blue jay would land on the branch in front of me, look me in the eyes, and tell me it was frightened, too. My best friend sees her beloved grandma in cardinals, her grandpa in pheasants. I see every person I love and fear losing in the blue jay’s streak of life. 

Matthew 6, right at the start of the New Testament, urges readers to look to the birds. They neither reap nor sow and yet they sing. “Who can add a day to their life by worrying?” poses the passage. But all they are is interested in adding a day to their life, just not by worrying. They do it by waiting. I listen to their incessant chatter, their calls and responses of hope, and feel something settle. As I watch them gather twigs and leaves to build their homes through my clouded windows, I wonder if there is a feeling holier, more muscular, than expectancy.