Running with the birds
In a yoga class a few years ago, the teacher got us into half-moon pose and told us a frustratingly long story about a rose bush she saw on the way to class. “Think of the rose, dripping with dew, and just springing with life—just absolutely buoyant!” she said. “That’s what you are in this pose. Like the rose, find some ease in your effort.”
At the time, I was trying to split myself into a star shape on a single plane while balancing on one leg in a 100-degree room with 10 other people. I had no clue what she was talking about—until years later, this summer, when I met my swans.
Yes, my swans, as I’ve referred to them ever since. Around the beginning of summer, I noticed two mute swans had settled at the Ridgewood Reservoir where I like to run from time to time. The reservoir is truly a runner’s paradise: The path is a flat mile and change around what was three basins for collecting drinking water until 1959. The center basin is now a pond with tall grass that sways in the wind, while the two outer basins are completely overgrown with forest and wetland and upland grasses and plants.
It’s also a bird sanctuary, a beautiful thing because there aren’t many great choices for birds around me. One time, also on a run, I met a pair of geese on Metropolitan avenue in East Williamsburg who were very obviously coming from Newtown Creek, a superfund site nearby. I am sure that in their little bird brains they were thinking, “what in the literal fuck did the humans do to this water?” And I so wished in that moment that I could somehow tell these geese about the Ridgewood reservoir, and how it’s home to more than 100 species, including the red-tailed hawk, the tufted titmouse (the best-named bird ever), and of course, their fellows, the swans.
It’s no wonder mute swans have inspired ballets and fairy tales and love stories. From afar at least, they’re glorious, peaceful birds. They float in pairs in still ponds and marshes, captivating people with their long S-shaped necks and the fact that they mate for life—unless, like humans, they feel the need for a divorce. Every time I go to the reservoir now I look for my swans, who I’ve named Buddy and Buddette.
These names are a very cheesy homage to my Grandfather, who has Alzheimer’s. He signed all of my birthday cards “Your buddy, Pa” for as long as I can remember. Also, one of my favorite things about him is (was? he’s still here, but not really) how amused he was by the animals and birds that visited his Floridian backyard. He had bullfrogs named Frick and Frack and a turtle named Fred. Fred liked to swim in Pa’s pool. Pa would fish him out of the chlorinated water with a pool net, throw him over the concrete wall to the pond behind his house, and still Fred would somehow make his way back the next week. This persistence remains inspiring.
But anyway, back to my swans. I like to watch them float across the flat, brown water, all stained in muck, while I huff and puff along the asphalt path around the basin, dripping in sweat. They slice through the water like hot knives through butter, communicating soundlessly, diving for roots as instinct tells them to do. They’re just a couple of swans, you know? But to look at them is to realize they’re springing with life—they’re just absolutely buoyant—and it reminds me that so am I.
It looks so easy being a swan, though I’m sure it’s not. Likewise, it is not easy doing whatever it is that I am doing out there on the path. But by mimicking the swans, by simply being, I really can find the ease in my effort.
Other things to think about while running this week…
HBO’s Succession is back October 17. I am rooting for my Sad King Kendall, obviously.
What Got Left Out of LulaRich? Anne Helen Peterson speaks to Meg Conley about Amazon’s doc on predatory leggings MLM, LulaRoe. I tried to go through this again and find an enticing quote for you, but it’s so rich and so complex in the best way, you’re just going to have to trust me and read the whole thing.
I hope to live as long as the 101-year-old Lobster Lady from Rockland, Maine.