A kingfisher was hanging around my house the other day. I don’t know why. There are no fishing opportunities in the immediate area so I can’t imagine what was here to interest him. He perched for a long while on the pergola and then later I saw him out front on the signpost. He was absolutely gorgeous – bright turquoise with a red breast.
I remembered hearing a saying from the American South that if there’s a bluebird on your porch on New Year’s Day it portends financial difficulties for the year. Like you’d need a bird to tell you that. Given the global crisis you’d have to be crazy not to be at least a little nervous. But, I told myself, this was not a bluebird and it wasn’t New Year’s Day, and this isn’t even any kind of South. And anyway, I don’t believe in portents.
I realize it’s human nature to look for patterns in random events. In a big, scary world being able to see the signs and predict the future would be a considerable advantage. But it’s just an illusion, the sort of matrixing and pattern recognition that’s hard-wired into our brains. The bird represents nothing but his beautiful self.
I haven’t seen him since, but he’s welcome to come back. Maybe a fish pond would tempt him back. I’ll have to think about this because clearly, a splash of turquoise is just what the garden needs.
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