Birdcalls and magic
February 23, 2002 | 12:00am
I suppose that I am retired. I think that means you’ve left the place where you labored so long and changed your schedule. Unless you stupidly set an appointment for the first hour in the morning (in which case they should retire you for senility), you no longer have to wake up at a certain fixed time. You wake up when the birds call or when the white dove settles on your window ledge and starts pecking at your screen.
This morning I awoke when the white dove who seems to have adopted me pecked at my screen. He cleans it, I think. A friend suggested that he or she – I never know what gender birds are – was the spirit of a friend who had passed on. That scared me. I don’t like spirits of dead friends pecking at my window. The other spirits, I quite enjoy. I feel them hovering around me. When we just moved in, they were resentful. We had disturbed their natural abodes. They watched us with baleful eyes as we set about claiming territory that once was theirs.
I remember the first night I spent alone. I was working on my computer when I suddenly became aware of water sloshing. The pond was still empty then but someone was walking in water right under my window. I looked out, nothing there, not even water. The sound was close and clear: Foot enters water with some force, gets slightly stuck in muddy bottom, lifts out with some effort and much dripping water, sloshes down again. There was a creek at our old farm. I know the sounds people make when they walk in water. I went back to my computer. After a short while, silence.
Later, from a different part of the garden, came the sound of chopping wood. Garden lights revealed an empty garden with loud chopping sounds coming clearly from under a tree near my studio. I poured myself a stiff drink so I could sleep. I never really see them. I just feel and hear them.
Sometimes the presence is very strong. There is a street I call Fairyland, where many of them now abide because that block is uninhabited. When I walk through there I call out in my head, "Hello? Just me passing through. Hope I’m not bothering you. Just passing through." You’re supposed to say this in Tagalog but that just doesn’t sound like me. Anyway, they understand not your language but your intentions. They know I mean to get along well with them.
A few times he walked ahead of me. I sensed that he wasn’t walking in a straight line. Sometimes he would be on the road then suddenly he would veer to the right and look back at me. He wasn’t very small... What am I talking about? He wasn’t there at all. I couldn’t prove that he was. But when I wasn’t thinking I would see the brown curve of his shoulder pass me, go off to the right of me. Just the curve, nothing more. A part of me said this meant something good but another part of me felt ridiculous, worried that perhaps I was going crazy.
"Sometimes it sounds like they’re having a party here," my maid said. "They are so noisy." This was the maid who was friendly with the village herbalist, the local healer. The herbalist said there were hostile earth spirits around us. One was particularly upset because we moved the tree in which he lived. That tree had been in the general vicinity of the maid’s room so the spirit was haunting the maid. This is what the herbalist said. This story is not easy to ignore because I know what the maid could not have known: We moved two trees from the general vicinity of the maid’s room. I’m not sure about the spirits but I’m sure about the trees. So the herbalist could be right.
"This was theirs before we moved in," I told the maid. "We have to learn to live with them, make friends with them. Just talk to them in your head. I do all the time."
"You do?" she said, incredulous. Maybe that’s why she left.
That was many months ago when the garden was dusty and bare. Now it is lush with bright flowers and the house and grounds feel peaceful, harmonious, joyous. Whoever, whatever, if ever, we have come to terms.
The new maid does not hang out with the herbalist. She prefers the company of nuns. "Sister told me that our garden is so beautiful because we have angels watching over us." I have no problem with angels. No problem with fairies. No problem with Mariang Makiling. The brown curved shoulder I used to see could have been a fervent wish for St. Joseph’s protection. All good Catholic girls know St. Joseph is the saint you pray to when you want a good husband. Or maybe that was Lady Chatterley’s lover, the woodsman. We don’t know. We can’t know. Either way it was probably my imagination creating something that would make me feel safer, better, special.
"Are you telling me you believe in fairies?" a savvy friend asked, sounding like my maid and, come to think of it, like my daughter when she said, "I can’t believe a woman like you watches Dynasty." Hey, I’m retired. I don’t have to make sense any more. I don’t have to be hard-nosed, cynical, profitable. I can now do what I’ve never done before. Let me believe in magic. Let me be a child. I was a good responsible grown-up for far too long.
This morning I awoke when the white dove who seems to have adopted me pecked at my screen. He cleans it, I think. A friend suggested that he or she – I never know what gender birds are – was the spirit of a friend who had passed on. That scared me. I don’t like spirits of dead friends pecking at my window. The other spirits, I quite enjoy. I feel them hovering around me. When we just moved in, they were resentful. We had disturbed their natural abodes. They watched us with baleful eyes as we set about claiming territory that once was theirs.
I remember the first night I spent alone. I was working on my computer when I suddenly became aware of water sloshing. The pond was still empty then but someone was walking in water right under my window. I looked out, nothing there, not even water. The sound was close and clear: Foot enters water with some force, gets slightly stuck in muddy bottom, lifts out with some effort and much dripping water, sloshes down again. There was a creek at our old farm. I know the sounds people make when they walk in water. I went back to my computer. After a short while, silence.
Later, from a different part of the garden, came the sound of chopping wood. Garden lights revealed an empty garden with loud chopping sounds coming clearly from under a tree near my studio. I poured myself a stiff drink so I could sleep. I never really see them. I just feel and hear them.
Sometimes the presence is very strong. There is a street I call Fairyland, where many of them now abide because that block is uninhabited. When I walk through there I call out in my head, "Hello? Just me passing through. Hope I’m not bothering you. Just passing through." You’re supposed to say this in Tagalog but that just doesn’t sound like me. Anyway, they understand not your language but your intentions. They know I mean to get along well with them.
A few times he walked ahead of me. I sensed that he wasn’t walking in a straight line. Sometimes he would be on the road then suddenly he would veer to the right and look back at me. He wasn’t very small... What am I talking about? He wasn’t there at all. I couldn’t prove that he was. But when I wasn’t thinking I would see the brown curve of his shoulder pass me, go off to the right of me. Just the curve, nothing more. A part of me said this meant something good but another part of me felt ridiculous, worried that perhaps I was going crazy.
"Sometimes it sounds like they’re having a party here," my maid said. "They are so noisy." This was the maid who was friendly with the village herbalist, the local healer. The herbalist said there were hostile earth spirits around us. One was particularly upset because we moved the tree in which he lived. That tree had been in the general vicinity of the maid’s room so the spirit was haunting the maid. This is what the herbalist said. This story is not easy to ignore because I know what the maid could not have known: We moved two trees from the general vicinity of the maid’s room. I’m not sure about the spirits but I’m sure about the trees. So the herbalist could be right.
"This was theirs before we moved in," I told the maid. "We have to learn to live with them, make friends with them. Just talk to them in your head. I do all the time."
"You do?" she said, incredulous. Maybe that’s why she left.
That was many months ago when the garden was dusty and bare. Now it is lush with bright flowers and the house and grounds feel peaceful, harmonious, joyous. Whoever, whatever, if ever, we have come to terms.
The new maid does not hang out with the herbalist. She prefers the company of nuns. "Sister told me that our garden is so beautiful because we have angels watching over us." I have no problem with angels. No problem with fairies. No problem with Mariang Makiling. The brown curved shoulder I used to see could have been a fervent wish for St. Joseph’s protection. All good Catholic girls know St. Joseph is the saint you pray to when you want a good husband. Or maybe that was Lady Chatterley’s lover, the woodsman. We don’t know. We can’t know. Either way it was probably my imagination creating something that would make me feel safer, better, special.
"Are you telling me you believe in fairies?" a savvy friend asked, sounding like my maid and, come to think of it, like my daughter when she said, "I can’t believe a woman like you watches Dynasty." Hey, I’m retired. I don’t have to make sense any more. I don’t have to be hard-nosed, cynical, profitable. I can now do what I’ve never done before. Let me believe in magic. Let me be a child. I was a good responsible grown-up for far too long.
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