Dear Friend,
I hope this note finds you …
Well, I hope this note finds you. I think that is enough for now.
I want to tell you about the grosbeak I saw the other day while sitting in my parked car waiting to go into the dentist’s office. I was early, or maybe just not wanting to get out of the car. Recently, the slightest agitations of my body exhaust me.
The grosbeak surprised me, flitting from the tree branch to my car. He perched on the sideview mirror, admiring itself, pecking at the glass before moving to the car next to mine and admiring himself in this new mirror. I wonder if he understood he was closer than he appeared. Do birds even recognize themselves? I could look it up, I guess, but I’m in a hurry to get this off to you before I lose the will to write and instead bury myself back under the flannel sheets of my bed.
So anyway, the grosbeak was quite loud, chirping and flying from car to car. The morning sun was bright, and it was already unseasonably warm. Isn’t that what we keep saying — unseasonably warm? I think this is the norm now, as unprecedented is now precedented, but maybe we still imagine (hope) we will have something like a “normal” winter in the not-too-distant future. Although since it has turned to April, our snow dreams will have to wait until next winter. Or perhaps we will stop dreaming of snow. But I digress.
In the parking lot, my car window was opened a crack to let in the morning breeze. As the grosbeak approached again, I couldn’t help but worry that he would fly into my Kia like some feathered carjacker and mess up my hair with his tiny bird feet, and then poop all over my dashboard before bashing its head on the opposite rolled-up window and dropping onto my lap.
But as soon as I craned my head to stare at him, with a silent warning of “don’t,” he tilted his head at me as if saying, “So what if I do?” before he flew away to the naked branched tree my car was parked under.
When I was checking in with the receptionist, I heard a few patients in the waiting room talking about the beautiful bird, saying they’d “never seen anything like it,” and such. I wanted to tell them, “It’s a grosbeak and it’s too early for them, dammit,” but I kept my mouth shut — and not because I was at the dentist’s office. No one wants a know-it-all, especially first thing in the morning, when we are all trapped in the purgatory of Muzak, hot pleather seats and the smell of antiseptic and fluoride.
And so, I sat quietly reading my latest dragon and/or witch fantasy book — I don’t remember, but it was probably some combination of both. I had to stop reading dystopian fiction because, well, art has become life.
As I sat tipped back in the hygienist’s chair, thoughts of the grosbeak quickly flitted away as I clasped my hands, white knuckling my way through the scrape scrape scraping sounds of the metal pick on my teeth, trying not to swallow while the little suction thing worked poorly, and drool escaped the right corner of my mouth. The trash napkin around my neck did nothing except make me feel ridiculous, as always. I looked around at everything in the room — the counter, the antibacterial soap, the air purifier, the mini X-ray reader, the computer, the little mouth mirror — and couldn’t help but wonder about all of this stuff.
Maybe in the 1800s the doctor just put some pliers in someone’s mouth and yanked out the rotted tooth. A swish of whiskey and they were good to go. Now? Stuff upon stuff.
After the cleaning, there was more stuff. A goody bag filled with toothpaste (the good kind), a new toothbrush and floss I’ll never use. I guess once we become adults this is our version of the birthday party bag.
I looked for the grosbeak as I stepped into my car, but it was long gone. Or it was spying on me from another tree, and I just didn’t look up at the right time.
There was a telltale deposit on the hood of my car, and I wish the bird had been more thoughtful and left its business on the roof so I wouldn’t have to think about washing my car every day.
But it’s a bird and I’m a human, and really who cares about a little poop? The whole world spins on excrement right now from decayed dinosaurs to the words of politicians; what’s a little more?
I have to say that when I was in graduate school and my writing teachers told me that “inspiration is everywhere,” I don’t think they meant for me to write about teeth cleanings or bird poop. But they also advised me to write what I know.
I do know a little something about birds, and that is that the grosbeaks should be migrating back to Flagstaff in the next month, unless it remains unseasonably warm, and then we might see them sooner. Or they may see themselves sooner, depending on which parking lots they hang out in.
PS: I forgot to tell you, no cavities. I hope the same goes for you. And that your goody bag is filled with the good kind of toothpaste as well.
