~ January 26, 2004 - 10:43 p.m. ~
Birds and Stars
I hear mourning doves outside my window. This is preposterous because "outside my window" is actually just a narrow strip of alley that butts up against a brick office building festooned with fire escapes. I have no idea what they do over there, but they have probably seen me naked many, many times. I have a nasty habit of wandering out of the shower and over to the dresser before I remember the shades are wide open, and there is nothing between me -- my bare skin -- and the office but an emaciated alleyway and two panes of glass.And now, apparently, mourning doves. I remember hearing them for the first time when I was nearly three, just before my mother became pregnant with Frone. My parents went away on a last trip to Europe before becoming encumbered by two kids, and I stayed with my grandparents. I was sitting in the kitchen, and Nona had made me cream of wheat, and I was eating out of this special little bowl she kept just for me. It was autumn, and the windows were open, and the curtains (she had lace eyelet curtains, I will never forget) were swaying gently. And I heard it.
Ah-hoo-hoo-hoo! Ah-hoo-hoo-hoo!
And it fascinated me. I abandoned my cereal and stuck my head out the window, looking around for the origin of the sound. The street below my grandparents' apartment was silent and still. The sun had just risen, making the remnants of the night's fog glow pink. I hauled myself further through the open window to get a better look, prompting Nona to rush over and pull me down from the ledge I was leaning out of. She asked me what was so interesting that I had to go tumbling out of windows to get a better look, and I told her that I heard a noise. But the sound had stopped. So we sat there by the window, Nona in a chair while I perched on her lap, straining to hear it again.
Ah-hoo-hoo-hoo! Ah-hoo-hoo-hoo!
"There it is!" I hollered, rocketing myself nearly out the window again. Nona patiently collected me back onto her lap and explained to me that I was hearing the call of the mourning dove. But I was not quite three, and I didn't fully understand death, let alone mourning, so I thought she was saying "morning" dove. After all, it was morning. I remember asking Nona where the doves went in the afternoon, and I remember her laughing a little and telling me to eat my cream of wheat while it was still hot.
A year later, I found myself in nursery school, where we were performing a Thanksgiving pageant. Half the children were playing Pilgrims, and half of us were Indians. I don't remember my actual Indian name, but I do remember its English translation: Mourning Dove. I remember thinking it was a sign.
Florida is remarkably devoid of mourning doves. If there are any, I've never head them calling. It is the one bird call I can identify, just as Orion is the only constellation, besides the Big Dipper. Both the call and the stars remind me of my childhood, and moments in which I learned them are crystallized in my memory. I think I would have missed the mourning doves more acutely in Florida, had I not had Orion to look at.
The first time I saw him was in the parking lot of my church. My friend and I were in the children's choir, and we were waiting for our mothers to come pick us up. The winter night was clear, for once, and the stars shone brighter than the street lamps. He turned to me and asked me if I knew where the Big Dipper was. I didn't. We stood there, little mouths agape, staring futilely at a map we couldn't read before a voice boomed "Orion!"
We jumped, startled by the voice of the big bearded man who had come on us unheard. We both recognized him as a singer in the adult's choir, and politely said hello. He smiled down on us.
"Do you know how to find Orion?"
"No sir," my friend said. "We were looking for the Big Dipper."
The man laughed. "Orion is much more interesting. There!" he said, pointing. "You see those three stars in a row? That's his belt. And those little stars down the side are his sword. And those two stars at an angle above are his shoulders, like he's slumping, like this!" And he demonstrated, striking a comical pose. We laughed.
"Please sir," I asked. "Who is Orion?"
"Who is Orion?" The man asked with mock shock. "He is the Great Hunter, and a son of a god."
"The son of God?" my friend asked.
"No, the son of a god, a Greek one. He was in love with the goddess of the moon, and when he was killed, she hung him in the sky so she could look at him forever."
While we stood there, gaping again, and when I turned to ask another question, he had slipped into the church. I remember thinking that he was a strange man for saying such strange things about gods and goddesses in the parking lot of a Catholic church. That Christmas I asked my parents for a book of Greek myths.
These are things that, twenty and fourteen years later, still seem magical to me. I hear mourning doves and remember being able to fit in Nona's lap. I see Orion and fall in love with him all over again. Simple pleasures. They are things that make me happy, that remind me that, until now, I have been happy all along. That remind me I have no reason not to be happy now.
