Nursing Wounds

The beach was packed. After the last few dreary days, tourists and locals alike were taking advantage of the sun in droves. While people whized by on peddle bikes and tried to keep their dogs in check, Mindi and I perused the natural exhibit of jellyfish washed up onto the sand just recently covered by high tide, still wet enough to mirror the sky and seemingly pull the ground from under our feet. Not too far down, I stopped. Singled out amongst the four-legged critters and rosy jewel globules spotting the shore was a large, black bird, strutting slowly and steadily on feet almost larger than his head. His slow pace imitated a sort of reverence but when he tried to fly off, the reverence became exposed as vulnerable injury. The proximity of the bird, let alone being the only aviary creature on shore quickly drew notice, but mostly in a passing gawk or with a sense of entitled onlook, as though the bird had been placed there solely for "your personal viewing pleasure."

"Mindi, do you think there is an Animal Rescue in town?"

After a couple of numbers, I was connected with a woman who as it turned out, had been waiting for my call. "Is it a Black Cormorant? Near Neahkhanie? Long neck? We've been looking for that bird for two days! I will find someone and give you a call right back."

Ten minutes later, a gruff voice that called himself Rich called to say he was zooming down from Canon Beach. The cormorant had taken to riding out into the tide and then gradually taking it into shore, realizing there was no where to go in the depths of water. I told Rich it was no problem for me to hang around. Shortly after I was off the phone, the cormorant ceased is ebb and flow and with that slow, metered pace, made its way more inland to where the water could not lap him back into the fray. He paused then, and slowly opened both wings as if to make an declarative admonition of his helplessness. 

Unfortunately, this called attention to more voyeurs who would stop to take their pictures and let their kids unnervingly close making clueless comments about "its being so calm" and "I wonder what's up with that duck?"

With the come and go of attention, the cormorant was now making its way inland without pause, towards the road and away from the spotlight on the beach. As he wandered, I kept pace and distance until we were moving at a consistent sort of stroll. I felt a kinship then, and began wondering what this painful journey had been like for him, how he became injured, whether he could sense that I was there to get help. 

Shortly before Rich arrived, he had made it into the grass line by a large Blackberry patch. It became apparent that he was going to keep moving away from people if he sensed that movement around him and I didn't want him going into the street so I held back now and waiting from a hill atop the grass patch he'd turned into. I thought for sure that when Rich arrived, his tumult would be over. 

But when Rich arrived, he was gone. 

We are so readily good at killing and harming and have this simultaneous altruism for protecting and saving. I felt betrayal. I felt both personally responsible and dejected from its lack of trust that had lead it most likely deep into the thorny berry plants and eventual death. Even as every inch of me realized how un-natural it is for a wild animal to receive domestic rehabilitation, I could not shake the disappointing sense of failure and loss. 

I stood by the blackberry bush, imagining the bird, torn and clawed at by the wild blades, nestled down into the earth to surrender. 

And maybe that is how it was supposed to be. 

Altruism is usually more about ourselves than about the other. And I had been seeking control and the miraculous and redemption all day after a series of let downs. In common reality, I had not done anything worth feeling guilty of. In the wilderness of its natural habitat, the bird would have had no other option to fend for itself and nature would play its part out as it was meant to. In my reality, it was an opportunistic moment to repair a torn sense of worth and achievement in my day. 

Rich let his dog out on the beach for a few minutes and I paced the roadside overlooking the bushes that had engulfed my goal. I imagined fantastical scenarios of the world turning to cater to me at the last moment as Rich made his way back to his car, maybe hearing a distraught squawk or catching a glint of yellow beak. But that is not what the world is always there for. And the more you expect it, the more disappointment you receive. And I had been expecting a lot. I finally surrendered and turned to walk home and in that physical pivot of letting go, a part of me accepted that as the lesson of the past few days and a shifting took place. 

Sometimes it takes some broken wings to figure out a different way to travel.