All That Glitters...

After many months of being cooped up at home during a bone-chilling winter in New England, my husband and I decided to flee to a warmer place for two weeks. With the Omicron variant for Covid spreading like wildfire, we were definitely skeptical about venturing out. So we picked a coastal non-touristy area of West Palm Beach, Florida, and rented a home for two weeks. Working remotely doesn’t matter from where one does the work as long as there is the internet.

Our flight began early and we landed late in the morning in Palm Beach. Even though our Airbnb was not yet ready for us, the owner allowed us to drop our luggage prior to our check-in time. We had 3 to 4 hours to kill without a car, which left us with no other choice but to wander here and there on nearby streets.

We got on to the main street of the Historic District. It was a Sunday and most shops were closed. But I noticed there were rows and rows of antique shops and I thought to myself they were definitely worth exploring on a later date. I also noticed the buildings were low in height with clay-tiled roofs. The coastal areas are generally prone to hurricanes so it must be their building code not to build tall. Four seasons of warm weather also allowed stucco facade walls laced with bougainvilleas that looked really enchanting. The sidewalks were nicely paved. Adjacent perpendicular streets had residential houses with beautiful front gardens, with a variety of palm trees and bougainvilleas. On the main street though, to my surprise, I didn’t notice as many trees.

Something caught my eye. On the pavement that we were walking on, thousands of little tiny balls of what looked to me like berries or their seeds were scattered all over. Some squished, some were looking fresh. I felt sad thinking, ‘oh poor berries if they were edible should have grown in farms. They could have been harvested and would have been made available to consume.’ I was almost like a child playing hopscotch not to squish them. There were plenty and it was not possible for me to skip squishing a few. At some point it made me wonder, if there are so many berries, there must be vines or trees. This means there should have been shade from them on our pathway which was not there. I had mentioned earlier that not many trees were on the main street, so I was more curious to know where these berries came from.

When I looked up, I was pleasantly surprised to see thousands of tiny migratory birds sitting in a file on the wires hanging from electric poles. It was such a joy to watch them. I even paused and recorded it on my phone. The sight was so charming I forgot I was searching for trees and berries. Realizing I was not next to him, my husband turned back at some point and called out for me to continue walking.

I continued forward but my perspective of the view changed all of a sudden. As I gazed back towards the pavement I realized those tiny balls were not berries as there were no trees. In the spur of a moment, the pleasure of watching those swaying squeaking birds vanished. One might wonder why so? Because of obvious reasons that I missed before. I was playing hopscotch, trying to save those berries, when it turned out they were bird poops. What was worse than that was that any given second I could have been the victim of those poops.

While awareness is important, true ignorance is bliss many times. I also believe there is a lesson to learn from every experience. Today, the birds taught me something. In general, our lives are always caught in others’ mess. One just needs to learn to enjoy life in a world full of shits.

-Manorama Choudhury

January 10th, 2022