Birds and Boredom

In the early hours on Wednesday morning, just before the sun came up, a bird fluttered (somewhat ungracefully) onto Phoenix’s midship’s butterfly hatch. A hatch on a sailboat can best be described as a skylight, a window in the deck, so the bird’s position gave us the exact opposite of a bird’s eye view. While looking up at this bird’s underside I realize how unfamiliar I am with bird types, but it looks like a pigeon, only light brown and its coo is slightly different. 

I waited for her to turn and fly away, but instead she just sat there, looking forward, seemingly watching the sunrise. My cat, Roger, was interested immediately. That bird sat there for about 25 minutes and not once did Roger peel her eyes away. The bird held my attention for a time too. I noticed her little chest puffing in and out, at first heavily, then slowing down. As the sun started to brighten the sky, I could see her chest feathers lit with a warm hue in the front, tail feathers still in shadow. At one point she cleaned under her wings with her beak (or maybe she was itching?), ruffling everything up for a moment before it all fell perfectly back into place. Eventually, after some time, something else pulled her attention and she flew away. She was gone as quickly as she arrived. 

Roger is endlessly fascinated by the birds. In the early mornings at first light she crouches on the pillow next to my head, peering out the porthole at the waterfowl as they meander through the slips. When she’s up top she runs back and forth in the deckway, pulled by chirps coming from all directions. And on Wednesday morning, for nearly a half hour, she hopped back and forth from the nav station to the salon table, with her head turned upwards. 

It seems I’m starting to learn from Roger, because there’s something about the presence of the birds that has felt so comforting recently. When I walk through the parking lot I’m always struck by feelings of nostalgia when I hear the seagulls caw. When it snows I watch the white flakes slowly settle and accumulate on the white goose’s feathery back. When I lie in bed at night and try to identify every sound I feel immense relief when I realize – no, that’s not a boat alarm, it’s just a duck quacking aggressively at his partner. Somehow these birds, who have accepted me as their neighbor for just one short season, serve as a reminder to appreciate this one short season that I get to share with them.

It is at this point in writing about the birds where I think – is this all really fucking boring? In a world of clickbait headlines and endless articles on how to “wow” your readers – who cares about the birds and the way they may slow you down. The question is always so what? And there was a moment while writing out the first draft of this where I thought of trashing all of this. I thought – there is no “so what?” It’s boring. 

But then, a gift from the universe it seemed, I was gifted with the memory of a Margaret Atwood poem I stumbled across months ago. I dug up the journal that I had jotted it down in and reread:

Bored – Margaret Atwood

All those times I was bored

Out of my mind. Holding the log 

While he sawed it. Holding 

The string while he measured, boards,

Distances between things, or pounded

Stakes into the ground for rows and rows

Of lettuces and beets, which I then (bored)

Weeded. Or sat in the back of 

The car, or sat still in boats,

Sat, sat, while at the prow, stern, wheel

He drove, steered, paddled. It 

Wasn’t even boredom. It was looking, 

looking hard and up close at the small 

Details. Mytopia. The worn gunwales,

The intricate twill of the seat

Cover. The acid crumbs of loan, the granular 

Pink rock, its igneous veins, the sea-fans

Of dry moss, the blackish and then greying

Bristles on the back of his neck. 

Sometimes he would whistle, sometimes

I would. The boring rhythm of doing

Things over and over, carrying 

The wood, drying

The dishes. Such minutiae. It’s what 

The animals spend most of their time at,

Ferrying the sand, grain by grain,

From their tunnels, 

Shuffling the leaves in their burrows. 

He pointed

Such things out, and I would look

At the whorled texture of his square finger, 

Earth under

The nail. Why do I remember it as sunnier

all the time then, although it more often

Rained, and more birdsong?

I could hardly wait

To get the hell out of there to 

Anywhere else. Perhaps though 

Boredom is happier. It is for dogs or

Groundhogs. Now I wouldn’t be bored.

Now I would know too much.

Now I would know. 

After rereading it strikes me how she so beautifully illuminates what I’m trying to wrap my head around. I want to let myself be bored. I want to explore seemingly boring topics. To let myself simply enjoy. I want to allow the birds to hold my attention until they fly away. 

And this is the “so what?”. In a world where we can distract ourselves constantly, where we always expect to be entertained, I feel that I must make a conscious effort to really slow down. To appreciate the birds, yes. But more importantly to appreciate all of the beauty around me. To appreciate the people and the conversations. The smell of low tide and the taste of my morning coffee. “The worn gunwales. The intricate twill of the seat cover.” The seemingly small details that will make me reflect on this season with a nostalgic memory of sunny days.