Conversations with crows

Of all the friends I had as a child, one was a crow. Yes, a big black, cawing crow.

I had forgotten about my feathered friend, till on my last trip to India, my sisters recounted my daily “conversations” from our balcony, with this particular crow. It all came back quickly. I insisted it was the same crow returning daily. It was. Of that, I am sure. They also recounted that I insisted we (the crow and I) communicated with one another. Of that, I am not so sure. Or at least, some decades later, no longer so sure.

I was probably eight or nine years old and determined to master animal and bird sounds around me. I spent hours perched on the apartment complex wall, perfecting my goat bleat. A herd visited a well at the back of the wall, every day. And while my bleat is quite perfect (ahem… even today), the goats simply looked around nervously and scampered away.

The crow, on the other hand, stayed. And came back. Every. Single. Day. Just to caw with me. He was a friend, my friend. I remember the exact spot on the balcony from where I communicated with him. Of where he perched himself. And even if my caw was not quite as perfected as my bleat, he still came back daily.  

There are times when we are grateful for the families we are born into. Oddly enough, this makes me grateful for mine, despite all dysfunction. For I realize only now (and with much gratitude), no one ever thought to discourage me from talking to crows or from the many other strange things I did. They sometimes discussed it, laughed it off, and accepted it all as part of who I was.

I also remember writing an essay in school, about the crow – not sure if I wrote about “my” crow, or crows in general. But I know my words came strong in defense of all crows and why we need to look at them with wonder rather than as nuisance – given their beautiful black sheen, their friendly demeanor and even their cawing that was crisper than a peacock’s ugly meowing.  

And while I was simply stating what was true to me, I do remember my teacher calling me aside to chat with me about my essay – whether she was amused, captivated, or simply worried, I will never know.

As for my crow friend, was he just flying in to check in with me, have a little conversation, or did he consider me as part of his flock? I will never know. And while that may have been the beginning of my love of foreign languages (crow, not included), I wonder if I even felt the need to know what he was saying.

He looked at me and cawed. I cawed right back at him. And then he repeated, And then, I repeated. What he said, I may have never known (or maybe I did, as I claimed), but the delight I got from this whole business was one hundred percent real.

He was simply my friend and we cawed along, just fine.

Clarity is a murky thing

Serendipity is a funny thing. In that, it happens. Over and over. Just when you need it. Just when you’re looking for it, in the least.

I am in the middle of a book, “The Sense of an Ending”, by Julian Barnes. Too distracted and saddened by the events of the past week, I do not wish to immerse myself in the happenings of fictionalized worlds of books. My head swims in the many questions related to events around me, to pay head to those Barnes raises, even if most eloquently.

I pick up the book again, and what I read stops me in my tracks. The protagonist talks about history. And although his context is a little different, I apply it to mine.

“The history that happens underneath our noses ought to be the clearest and yet it is the most deliquescent.”

It truly is, isn’t it? It flows away from us before we can make sense of it, and yet it is our history, in our time. It belongs to us, and as Barnes points out, it ought to be the clearest.  

But it isn’t. Maybe it will be to those who look at it in the future. Which is probably why Barnes talks about past history, “Perhaps I just feel safer with the history that has more or less been agreed upon”

And while our history in our present may not be the clearest, it is ours and we will have to own it. And it is ours, to help remind us that only we can shape it.

Thank you, Julian Barnes.