Meow House Theatre

I’ve got a South African football team (that’s soccer in case it’s not clear) here in the office and they are certainly a loud bunch.

I went outside for lunch–it’s beyond gorgeous out today–and I got a sandwich and went to sit in this faux park (there’s curlicued benches and a few flowers and trees, to make you feel pastoral … sitting in the middle of a quarter acre of pavement) that was built up to make people feel better about having to fund cost overruns of $10 billion on the Big Dig (a hideous construction project here in Boston that doesn’t seem to me to have made much difference in anything). So I was sitting there on a bench and there were some little birds right next to me. Maybe two or three feet away. I spent a few minutes watching them flitting around, hopping to and fro, making their little chirpy bird noises to each other. And I suddenly had a Moment of Clarity, the kind that in other people might lead to the formulation of the theory of gravity or the realization of the mathematical value in understanding water displacement. Only, the thought that consumed my head was: “these birds live outside all the time. Every single day, all year long. In a tree.”

Okay it was an azalea bush but still. They live in a tree! No house! Just a nest or hole in a branch or whatever it is that that type of bird does. No job, no car, no tax returns, no divorce when the wife runs off with the UPS man, no children sneaking down the trellis at 1:00 AM, no crashing realization when they finally retire and get the gold watch and finally get to spend all day at home and on the first day sit there and think “is that all there is?” None of that for these birds. No worries, no pain, no anything. They just live in a tree. FOREVER.

Well this started me laughing at the absurdity of 1) thinking of it at all; and 2) the overwhelming extent to which this thought–IN A TREE!!!–had burned itself into my brain. I’d eat a few bites and then start laughing, get ahold of myself, eat a bite, look at the birds, and start laughing again. I could not stop. It was like having a flashback. The man in the next bench kept giving me looks. There were some girls across the way and I am pretty damn sure they were talking about me. I think I saw a soccer mom with her kid in a fancy stroller turn toward me, tilt her head, and push that thing away just a little faster. I finally had to leave. I laughed on and off all the way back to work.

No drink or drugs were involved in this experience. Swear to god.