Lady Friends

Birds ... Emperors ... ladies ... and cows

I've never owned pets. My family had a dog when I was a kid … but he ran away. I don't particularly dislike animals … but they engage a commitment to the passions … that becomes a toggle of spoken communication … especially when you have also been speaking for your pet. I've taken to watching birds though … especially just outside my window … as they bathe in the stream or pick on food  … that flows out with the sink water.

 

I came to observe two specie of birds in particular. One is the mynah … with its brown and black feathers … and the other is the merbok ( Zebra Dove ) … baby blue in the face … blue eyes … lining on its feathers … and long sturdy tail feathers. The merbok is quite a song-bird … and is reared as pet by many folks here … for the melodious singing they produce. The mynah on the other hand … is more plain … makes calls … that are sharp and short.

 

I was looking through the binoculars at a merbok today … and in a case of curiosity about bird behavior … made the following notes. The blue color on the bird … combines with the lines on its feathers to make the bird quite handsome. He carries himself … with dignity … but seems cautious … about the mynah … who is more aggressive … near food. But the long tail feathers … longer than the mynah … intimated to me … about a flying habit … that is fickle and changes its course … often.

 

Perhaps the bird is distracted a little … I thought … by its own beauty … and wonderful singing … and lacks focus on movements. The merbok outside was feeding on rice … but didn't finish eating all. Suddenly it … walked a little to the stream … and stood mesmerized for a moment … then he suddenly took off. Lack of focus … I thought. Then suddenly he was back again … and continued eating.

 

It reminded me of the Hans Christian Andersen tale of the … The Nightingale. It was a pet of the emperor of China … and its songs brought him great joy of entertainment. It was apparently a relation that the emperor valued highly. When the bird was replaced by a mechanical bird … it left for the forest ... and the emperor crashed and came close to death. It says a bit about our choices … and the way it impacts on our passions.

 

Its like the way … a young man … feels the companionship of a lady in the gentler parts of his nature … and when he grows up to puberty … and the sexual experience … she desserts him without warning. He must wander about that … and miss its unmindful and friendly nature … that was given generously … without his asking. How much does he miss that … sometimes emerges in a later life experience … and sheds some light on the phenomenon.

 

A man who comes to create a friendship with a married woman … encounters something that reaches deep into his early relations with his lady. The woman is obviously in a relationship … and owing to that is self �" sufficient … and displays a personality that is balanced and well managed. To the man … she strikes a chord in the place … his lady friend occupied. But despite his best handling  … he sometimes simply comes to see her husband as rival for her affections. It feels like a tumbling weed.

 

Our best efforts to identify the wife at home ... as the lady of our youth ... continues to define our perceptions of love. Inevitably it gets a mixed review. Perhaps its because the lady placed no demands on our attention or her needs. A female companionship … that is not reliant on any one taking care of the other … is entirely independent in spirit and attitude … matches the male impulse for adventure … and sport ... is indeed rare. 

 

But to read in the news sometimes … that a man killed his lover's husband … before running off with her … or collecting the insurance money … raises the audacious specter of … the extent to which we would do what we do … to regain the affection of the lady we lost.  And when we have regained her love … would we still consider her self-sufficient and independent? Certainly our impulses … make a big thing of what we hope to regain when lost.

 

I've got into trouble with married women before … so these days … to assuage the loss of my lady … I go down to the park … and spent some time with the golden shower tree. It makes up for it in some way … and you don't have to water it. The municipality does that. But the neighbor's three beautiful dogs … who run up to the gate when I pass … receive less attention. I was walking to the bathroom one time … when the neighbor's cat had got in through the window … saw me nude and showed his fangs.

 

Anima and the passions certainly make for a heady mixture. The Babylonians … took their relations with animals a long way. Accustomed as they were to the vast expanse of sky and earth … they identified with the cow … in sharing the same visionary touch of the environment. They must have shared a sense of common identity as well … they made statues of cows with the head of their king. And they also added to it … wings … like a representation of thoughts in man.  I can't seem to recall if my lady friend had wings … but she did inspire in me … a vast view of life and the world around me. When she left … I regained my individual nature … and my thoughts on issues.

 

 

Reviews

[Briana O'Connor]

I really enjoyed the information provided within each train of thought. The piece read like an entertaining narrated journal. Very unique and interesting. Thank you for sharing.