Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Confession: I once knew how to talk to birds.

Here is a chunk of my life. I don't usually like talking about myself in public, but I think some may relate.
I am born from strange, strange parents. My father was a professional trumpet player, then, for a long time, the only lawyer on our city whose hair would flow lower than his shoulders. He would defend conscientious objectors, deserters and anyone who had a beef with the system. The kind of people who pay later.
My mother was a painter, the perfect mix between an asocial hermit and your very own spare mom. She was the sort of person who would declare aloud, while lining up at the bank, that "love is more important than money and why are you looking at me like that?"
Details of my childhood are irrelevant until my 11th year, when we moved from a rickety, minuscule downtown studio to a full fledged farmette, lost in a pine forest near the center of St. Nowhere.
Mom decided to populate it.
From that day on, I spent my days in contact with many more animals than I'd bother to count, including 150 kilos of love in the shape of a pet pig.
Things tended to happen a lot, amidst this never ending woods. Understanding the intricate personality of goats, hens, sheep and ducks quickly became my daily task; to this day I still remember how to breed chickens.
We were practically off the grid, living from the produce we grew and gathered.
This mix of 'creative parents' and an every day life permanently connected to nature -want it or not- has resulted in several rather mind blowing revelations; the kind that only happen to you in your teen-age.
I will never forget the sparrows we rescued from a fallen nest, how we taught them to fly and how they would land on our fingers when we called them. I will always remember walks in the forest accompanied by a dog, two cats and, of course, the pig. I will never, ever forget the first time I had to face the unfathomable power of our earth when, one night, a storm felled every single tree of our 500 hectares forest.
It's not until I moved back to the city, 5 years later, that I realized how many, many people we craving for what had been my life so far. Yes I did run naked in the wood (somewhat) yes I did my homework perched in a tree (after which I took naps on the very same branch), and yes I did learn to talk to birds, at least a couple of words.
Yet, nothing is said of the buckets, the dirt, the swampy ground and icy nights, the coal stove, the secluding distance and the lack of drinking water. Searing summers and wicked winters they were. And hail or rain or whatever, the hens need feeding. Nothing more will be said, too, because it was all worth it.
Worth as in "worth paying that price". The price of hot and cold, the price of heavy and sharp, the price of far. Oh so far.
Now, here I am, half a world and half a life away from the farmette. And still I see people craving for the connection, for nature, for the feeling you get when the sparrow lands on your finger.
Some talk to the sky, to shapes, to themselves. Some fall silent, some just can't stop talking. They spin around, looking into their bodies, their sex, their clothes, their speech like a radar antenna.
It might sound patronizing, but I actually am sad. No hatred here; let the sky listen and who knows it will answer. I am not sad at their rites, their terms or their spiraling search.

I am sad because somewhere there's a fallen nest, and nobody to pick it up.


Creative Commons License
Confession: I once knew how to talk to birds. by Danny Hefer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

PS: Great many thanks to the many great members of Ubud community without whom I would have never come up with this writing.

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