The Look
Most reviews of "Winged Migration" -- a hyper-beautiful documentary about birds -- proclaimed triumphantly that this film will make you feel like you're flying, and it is true. The camera work and the sheer closeness to the hundreds of various feathery subjects as they are suspended or gliding in the air above stupendously different landscapes shoots you out of your seat into a thin atmosphere of ethereal possibilities, and you forget you're not one of them. After two hours, the credits administer a couple of end-of-the-movie slaps, and you hit the ground with a thud.
What I remember the most, though, is one of the last scenes. Early in the morning, migratory geese are coming back to France after the winter spent in warmer zones; an old woman with a blue handkerchief on her head and a woollen cardigan goes out into the field and stretches out her hand, offering bread to the birds in a gesture of welcome; they stand like that for a minute, looking at each other, and then the birds come. Pure inter-species communication, based on offering, good will and trust.
I was reminded of this sort of offering the other day, during a break in a mountain hike. While we were eating on a rock close to the summit, a gray beady-eye bird showed up in the pine tree close to me. I had bread in my hand, and must have made an unconscious outbound movement since the bird took it as an invitation and flew towards me; then, realizing the piece of bread wasn't actually meant for it, it braked in mid-air, turned around, and went back to the tree. I immediately outstretched my hand as far as it would go, this time making a proper offering unambiguously. Just before it ventured again and alighted on my palm (the touch of its fine claws was lighter than a silky spiderweb aired in the winds), we looked at each other. It was one of those heartbeat-long looks you don't forget because it is everything, it is yes, it is a wordless tuning in with the universe.
Annie Dillard wrote about meeting a beaver while she was roaming in the woods one day. She just happened to pass by and look at it at the same moment when it looked at her. And there they were, for a precious finiteness of time, two beings gazing honestly at each other, with full consciousness, acknowledging the presence of the other, filling the moment of overlap with their complicit mutuality. A tiny and temporary redemption of the dark side of existentialism.
Looking at that bird and seeing in its eyes that it will come to my hand a second before it did, made my day, every day.
What I remember the most, though, is one of the last scenes. Early in the morning, migratory geese are coming back to France after the winter spent in warmer zones; an old woman with a blue handkerchief on her head and a woollen cardigan goes out into the field and stretches out her hand, offering bread to the birds in a gesture of welcome; they stand like that for a minute, looking at each other, and then the birds come. Pure inter-species communication, based on offering, good will and trust.
I was reminded of this sort of offering the other day, during a break in a mountain hike. While we were eating on a rock close to the summit, a gray beady-eye bird showed up in the pine tree close to me. I had bread in my hand, and must have made an unconscious outbound movement since the bird took it as an invitation and flew towards me; then, realizing the piece of bread wasn't actually meant for it, it braked in mid-air, turned around, and went back to the tree. I immediately outstretched my hand as far as it would go, this time making a proper offering unambiguously. Just before it ventured again and alighted on my palm (the touch of its fine claws was lighter than a silky spiderweb aired in the winds), we looked at each other. It was one of those heartbeat-long looks you don't forget because it is everything, it is yes, it is a wordless tuning in with the universe.
Annie Dillard wrote about meeting a beaver while she was roaming in the woods one day. She just happened to pass by and look at it at the same moment when it looked at her. And there they were, for a precious finiteness of time, two beings gazing honestly at each other, with full consciousness, acknowledging the presence of the other, filling the moment of overlap with their complicit mutuality. A tiny and temporary redemption of the dark side of existentialism.
Looking at that bird and seeing in its eyes that it will come to my hand a second before it did, made my day, every day.
posted by Tijana | 1:15 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home