I can hear birds chirping from my bedroom window. Even in noisy Bushwick filled with sounds of cars honking, ambulances sirening, kids screaming in the backyard, and the bus stopping in front of my house, it’s the sound of the birds chirping that I wake up to. Just beyond my bedroom window is a forest--not actually, but it feels like one. If I sit in my room on a sunny day with a slight breeze I can hear the trees rustling, it’s almost musical. With a quick download of the plant app, I find out that the trees beyond my window are apparently Japanese Zelkova trees. How the hell did it end up in Brooklyn?
There’s a bird, I think it’s called the mourning dove, that comes and sits on the back of my AC and coos so annoyingly. It’s so loud and I can hear it’s tiny bird feet clinking against the metal of my AC. Every once in a while the mourning dove wakes me up with its unforgivable cooing. I see it through the window glass. It’s always sideways, it’s one eye staring at me. I typically wind up darting anything in arms reach, usually a pillow, straight at my AC. When that’s not enough I get up and bang my palm against the face of my AC. The impact makes the mourning dove instantly fly away leaving me to return to my slumber.
All the other birds dance along the tree branches next to my window, but it wouldn’t be the first time the birds have taken a liking to my air conditioner. One time when I was in middle school and my cousins were over for a sleepover we discovered a bird's nest on my AC. I obviously know that birds make bird nests, but to see one in real life, made with real tree branches and honestly really well done, was surprising. You’ll hate me, but we ended up getting rid of the nest. I’ll spare you the details…
However, outside of that isolated incident long ago, the mourning dove is the only bird that goes out of its way to hang on my AC. Usually I see one bird, and I assume that it’s my grandfather, Ronald. My grandmother Carol shows up in other ways, I feel. I think she’d be more protective and I feel her when I’m out and about outside. She protects me from the crazies. The grandmother who I got to be raised with, my grandma, fiercely known as Eva M. Dula, passed away a year and a half ago. She met my mother through work and they became inseparable. I think her and Ronald were friends for the time that their paths crossed.
The other day, I woke up and saw two mourning doves on my AC, both looking into the window, and I think that maybe Eva joined this time to check on me. I didn’t have to throw anything at the AC unit--they weren’t cooing this time and they flew off, one first then the other, on their own.
Picture from April 2nd, 2021
Comments