mentally transported to another place, or another time; she seemed to be taking inventory, and wiping the slate clean. She finally sighed, acknowledging her error, and told me she had made a mistake and would have to go home and come back the following day.
I was more or less convinced that she lived nearby, and from the way she described the operation (have to go home, come back the following day, etc.), it was clear that she treated these visits, which were no doubt frequent, or in any case regular, as events that required preparation and, above all, represented a high point in her daily routine: a duty, a regular habit. That suspicion, if that’s the right word, allowed me to glimpse the net weight of a normal life, of any life, to allude to it in a perhaps condescending manner. The skein of a person’s own acts, whether unnoticed, essential or absurd, which range from the unconfessable to the naïve, from the irrational to the repeated, each with its dose of fear and dignity. I imagined this lady walking through the fairly empty streets of the surrounding area; two blocks before arriving home, she would think about the best moment to take her keys from her pocketbook and clutch them in her fist until she reached the front door. Most likely, I thought, the spot is predetermined: when she passes a certain tree, or crosses at a corner, she looks for her keys, and when she’s found them she removes her hand from her pocketbook. The operation is unconscious, however, just like the “thought” she has before she decides to take out the keys. A thought that is definite and vague at the same time.
I don’t know if any of the birds could have noticed our brief conversation; in any case I’m certain no one saw us, because this area seemed separated from human time, as did nearly the entire park for that matter. On one afternoon quite some time ago, at the end of one of my long days of mechanical strolling, during a period of isolation in which I did nothing but read and walk, as two different and yet sadly related activities—I’d forgotten about work and about the world, which didn’t bother me a bit, though I’d suffer the consequences soon enough—one afternoon I collapsed in exhaustion at the end of one of my long walks, and for something to do I opened the first book that came to hand. Halfway down the page there was a description of a bird’s gaze; and I don’t know if it was due to exhaustion or surprise, to my situation in general or the particular eloquence of the story, but the fact is that I was immediately overwhelmed by suggestibility and fear. The impact was such that I had to stay in for several days, probably frightened I’d run across some bird, even at a distance. Since then I’ve been unable to look a bird in the eye without reliving, more than my fear, the terrifying memory of that moment. Because sometimes the memory of what one has read tempers the actual experience, and the experience itself becomes, more than something physical, the realization of the reading . . .
The bird should remain at rest and the observer, whoever it is, perhaps myself, should stand in front of the creature, at some distance or closer-up, but facing it straight on. This exercise is impractical with fidgety birds, in general the smaller ones. It is the larger birds, much higher up the scale, and a few medium-sized birds, or those slightly removed from the aerial world, roosters for example, that make a greater impression. When you look at them you receive a terrible shock, because it’s hard to avert your eyes. It’s much more complicated than looking at fire, of course, because while the flames elicit an innocent fascination, which lets you have thoughts that are distant in time and space, the gaze of a bird induces the most anguished stupor in the observer, such that the bird’s violent origin can be seen; that is, both poverty and delirium at the same time. Afterward, in my experience, and in that of others who
I was more or less convinced that she lived nearby, and from the way she described the operation (have to go home, come back the following day, etc.), it was clear that she treated these visits, which were no doubt frequent, or in any case regular, as events that required preparation and, above all, represented a high point in her daily routine: a duty, a regular habit. That suspicion, if that’s the right word, allowed me to glimpse the net weight of a normal life, of any life, to allude to it in a perhaps condescending manner. The skein of a person’s own acts, whether unnoticed, essential or absurd, which range from the unconfessable to the naïve, from the irrational to the repeated, each with its dose of fear and dignity. I imagined this lady walking through the fairly empty streets of the surrounding area; two blocks before arriving home, she would think about the best moment to take her keys from her pocketbook and clutch them in her fist until she reached the front door. Most likely, I thought, the spot is predetermined: when she passes a certain tree, or crosses at a corner, she looks for her keys, and when she’s found them she removes her hand from her pocketbook. The operation is unconscious, however, just like the “thought” she has before she decides to take out the keys. A thought that is definite and vague at the same time.
I don’t know if any of the birds could have noticed our brief conversation; in any case I’m certain no one saw us, because this area seemed separated from human time, as did nearly the entire park for that matter. On one afternoon quite some time ago, at the end of one of my long days of mechanical strolling, during a period of isolation in which I did nothing but read and walk, as two different and yet sadly related activities—I’d forgotten about work and about the world, which didn’t bother me a bit, though I’d suffer the consequences soon enough—one afternoon I collapsed in exhaustion at the end of one of my long walks, and for something to do I opened the first book that came to hand. Halfway down the page there was a description of a bird’s gaze; and I don’t know if it was due to exhaustion or surprise, to my situation in general or the particular eloquence of the story, but the fact is that I was immediately overwhelmed by suggestibility and fear. The impact was such that I had to stay in for several days, probably frightened I’d run across some bird, even at a distance. Since then I’ve been unable to look a bird in the eye without reliving, more than my fear, the terrifying memory of that moment. Because sometimes the memory of what one has read tempers the actual experience, and the experience itself becomes, more than something physical, the realization of the reading . . .
The bird should remain at rest and the observer, whoever it is, perhaps myself, should stand in front of the creature, at some distance or closer-up, but facing it straight on. This exercise is impractical with fidgety birds, in general the smaller ones. It is the larger birds, much higher up the scale, and a few medium-sized birds, or those slightly removed from the aerial world, roosters for example, that make a greater impression. When you look at them you receive a terrible shock, because it’s hard to avert your eyes. It’s much more complicated than looking at fire, of course, because while the flames elicit an innocent fascination, which lets you have thoughts that are distant in time and space, the gaze of a bird induces the most anguished stupor in the observer, such that the bird’s violent origin can be seen; that is, both poverty and delirium at the same time. Afterward, in my experience, and in that of others who
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