Sparrow

Today is the anniversary of the 7.1 quake that hit the San Francisco area in 1989. I was thirteen at the time. A little less than a year later, I began taking care of and eventually adopted a cat that was living in my back yard. I named her Mello, because she never seemed afraid of me and my 13-yr-old shenanigans. Based on her approximate age, October 17th, 1989 also became Mello's unofficial birthday. I imagined that she was separated from her mom when the quake frightened them. Mello was a great cat and I wish I could've taken her with me to Seattle when I moved away, but I wasn't living in an area where she could run free (which she'd always been used to at my parents' house, catching mice, gophers, and birds). It's probably just as well, though, because I wouldn't have been able to give her the care she needed later in life.

We were having an extended summer here in L.A., until Saturday night when it started raining sporadically. It rained hard and steady last night, the water running off the roof in rivulets, onto our front stoop and down the stairs. This morning, when Jamie was leaving for work, she came back into the bedroom to tell me there was a dead bird on the stoop. A sparrow. The rain must've had a role in placing it there, but whether it died before or after the fall is hard to say. I told Jamie to go on ahead to work and I put on my shoes, grabbed a plastic bag and a spade, and went out to bury it in the garden. Before picking it up with the bag, I took a long look at it and moved it gently to make sure it wasn't sleeping. I put it only about a foot down into the wet soil among roots and worms. I knew it wouldn't be long before it rejoined with the earth. The rain continued to fall and the thunder clapped the rest of the day. I opened up all the blinds in the apartment and let the gray ambient light flood in.