Lately, everything overwhelms me. Everything beautiful overwhelms me. Everything sad overwhelms me. Everything happy overwhelms me. Everything about "leaving and returning" overwhelms me.
Today I went to see March of the Penguins. Everyone I talked to about going to watch the movie/documentary was like: "Joel, that is just boring". I decided, then, that I would enjoy life by myself. I didn't ask them this, but, how something that you don't know could ever be boring? And some people might say: "Joel, but you can watch that on the Discovery Channel". I would answer: why pass up the oportunity of watching it big, in full detail...? (You've seen more mediocre things, anyway).
The movie was so interesting and beautiful. I want to go to the South Pole now. In October or November, when summer starts, and it is less cold, maybe like cero degrees instead of -58 degrees. To make such a movie is to endure so much. You have to love film, you have to love nature very much, and have such patience and wonder towards those beings that you want to capture, beings that do not pose, nor care about you at all. At least penguins are not agressive.
With the movie I learned how intelligent animals are, or just penguins. I learned how penguins are so much like any human being. And maybe also, how they are more intelligent than human beings. Animals, or penguins, use their common sense ALL the time. Unlike many human beings. But penguins also go mad, and loose their minds with bad decisions. The penguins walk for many miles, more than 50, thats more than Puerto Rico's distance from north to south, and sometimes they walk more, depending on how much ice is frozen on the ocean surface. Guided by instinct they go deep inland where the ice is thick and it won't break on the next summer season, so that the chicks won't fall into the cold waters. They walk. But sometimes they slide on their bellies, propelled by their legs. And I couldn't help but think that some people did things the hard way for no reason (others don't of course; but I've heard people say: "pasa trabajo", as if to say that you should do things the hard way instead of doing them the easy way... why? It doesn't make sense).
Penguins form a partnership, male and female, to breed one egg. One! And there are so many perils ahead for that egg. The mother makes the egg, but she has to transfer it to the father, because she had use her resourses and has to go back to the sea to feed. The transfer is hard, they have seconds for it, if for some reason the egg rolls away from the penguins thick, black feet, the egg freezes, cracks and dies withing seconds. The parents have no purpose anymore and leave. The mothers that had a succesful transfer hurry to the sea, but the ice is frozen so they have to walk even longer than the first time. The fathers stay with the egg, for another month. All males engaged in a simultaneous bond, all hurdled together for warmth under the blizzards.
And so, when the females finally come back, the egg has hatched into a grey chick with black eyes, fragile and tender. And transfer time is back again, and the same rule applies, because the chicks are not yet able to walk by themselves. Seconds away from under their parents flap of skin, and their little bodies die as ice hardens their insides. The loss is unbearable. They made desperate grunts that sounded so sad. And then, they go mad, they try to steal another penguins chick, but the group doesn't let it happen. And so, the males go back to the sea after almost 4 months without eating, their path is even longer than the female's, as the ice keeps freezing, and that's why there are less males than females, perhaps.
I've told pretty much the whole movie by now. But it is not as rewarding as it is to see how these animals chose this place to live, and how they manage to survive in it. Because that's the place where they were born, and just because of that single reason, they always go back to the same exact place to breed. To love.
To love.
How can a bird love? I don't know. Maybe they don't even call it love. Maybe some scientist only call it "the instinct of survival" (I just made that up, by the way), the instinct of keeping the race growing is what make these penguins protect that chick, and endure the hardships of going hungry and exausted... But, isn't that what humans do? (Most of them anyway, the responsible ones, the loving ones). Humans, above all, want the well-being of their children. Why? Because the children have to be better than the parents? But why do they have to be better? Because the parents love them unconditionally? But why is that love unconditional? There is no reason for wanting the well-being of your children, really, there isn't, if you think about it. Love is not learned, it is just born, it is instinctive.
And how can a bird love a human or viceversa? Oh, how can a dog love a human or the other way around? I don't know. Who knows? No one. But I want to believe that my little Cockatiel, cared for me, or us. Coki, his name was, he died last Sunday. And even though he was just a bird, he was our bird, and we played with him for the six years that he lived, because we had him since he was just a baby chick. It was so sad to see his bright yellow body sitting on the floor of the cage, as if he was just tired, like a duck sitting on the grass. His head, with the orange spots on the sides, lowered in front of him, his beak touching the bottom of the cage. I had to touch his soft feathers for the last time, and it surprised me how alive he felt. But, he didn't respond. I remember when he survived the rocking chair, when one of his nails was broken and never grew back, poor thing squealed, whenever he was touched with the Vick's. And when he survived the rat glue-trap, somehow he got stuck on it, his beak his wings all stuck to the glue... he looked so glad, with his chest proud, after I cut the feathers to free him, and cleaned him... battered but alive. I didn't know how much I cared for him, or how much I loved him until he was gone. I hope that he felt my instinctive love when he was alive, because I felt his whenever he, lovingly or instinctively, would walk up to my hands and whistle with me.
Home is where the heart is, I said once... A friend said to me once... Some unaccounted person said once... If you were born in a place of friggid temperatures and dangers, but you were warm under your parents loving flap of skin, over their thick feet, and you walked on their feet as they taught you, and they cared for you with love, you are bound to go back to that place. You will go back by instinct not knowing exactly what you are doing. When you finally arrive, you say: this is where it all started, this is where I'm supposed to be right now, this is what I must do, this is where I help the circle of life. And when you're task is done (in the place that you called home, in the place that you were born, in the place that you played with your friends when you were little), you grow up, or if you are already grown up, you grow a little more, and then you leave. Just to come back home again, next year, and instinctively love once more.
1 comment:
That's beautiful.
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