What a Family!

Up, on the chim­ney of my neigh­bours’ house, Dora, the stork, was think­ing of her real prob­lems. She was think­ing as she couldn’t speak very well. She is clat­ter­ing her bill only when the time comes to agree with her hus­band that yes, it is spring and yes, it is high time to bring some new des­cend­ants to this fine life of theirs. But oth­er­wise, she is not en­dowed with a nor­mal voice. That’s why she hates the black­bird, her neigh­bour, so much… 

So she was think­ing: “Paint­ing? A pain in a tin… And ‘g’ like in ‘gym’…”

“Oh, but what am I do­ing here? Am I sep­ar­at­ing words for the separation’s sake in­stead of paint­ing? My paint­ing wouldn’t be ready in time for Sunday’s ex­hib­i­tion! And the other one with the half-opened win­dow! And the one with the Medi­ter­ranean Sea for my be­loved aunt… That sea I could never see, I only dreamt of it…”

“You know, I really like a paint­ing even if few of you have ever seen a stork paint­ing or have they seen paint­ings made by a really gif­ted stork painter like I am! You know, I have painted al­most all my life! I’m twenty-five by now, I am paint­ing and I’m a bit old… I re­mem­ber me, my mom and my dad, we had just re­turned to Europe after my first jour­ney spent in Egypt that winter… Even if I and my two elder sis­ters in­sisted on fly­ing over the Medi­ter­ranean, my dad strongly denied that! He used to teach us that the air thermals we needed for soar­ing do not nor­mally ex­ist over that huge wa­ter! So, as I longed for that huge wa­ter, I de­cided I am good at paint­ing, just be­cause I love paint­ing. I love pick­ing sticks with my long and el­eg­ant bill! I love the blue sky in my paintings!”

Then, her black-and-white head rose si­lently and, tak­ing a quick glance only, she told her hus­band: “Let’s go fishing”.

And her stream of thoughts went on: “My life is changed now as I gave up con­sum­ing meat! This is not for me! Fish­ing is for them, but not for me. It was, but no! Not any­more! I de­cided frogs and fish and other poor creatures of swal­low wa­ters are not good any­more for my stom­ach! Be­sides, our doc­tor back in Egypt told my mom that al­gae and also tiny river plants would suit bet­ter my wing that hurts some­times. And es­pe­cially my eye prob­lems. You know, kids, even if the per­son who is read­ing this story for you just now, maybe your grandma or your teacher, would never re­cog­nize he or she had health prob­lems be­cause of their meat diet, that is still a fact. But he or she would not tell you the truth in this re­spect. They will al­ways tell you chicken is OK, pork is OK, but they are not! Food from the su­per­mar­ket is not OK, I tell you! I had once a fine din­ner of frog leg steak bought from a su­per­mar­ket in Spain! And that was the be­gin­ning of my stom­ach aches!”

“Are we already reach­ing the fish­ing spot? Yes, this is the place… This is where we re­turn each and every year… I like this vil­lage, I like our nest even if it’s big and old and it lacks any col­our by now. But… what do I see over there…? Is it the wa­ter or … is it not wa­ter?… I think I’ll go and have a look… It’s a… door! I can feel it’s not the wa­ter of the river be­cause I do not feel fish mov­ing that way… And I can see the blue sky… I’m so curi­ous… What place is that? What land do I reach passing through that… door? What’s the sky like over there…?”

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“I know it, as well as you know it, too, it’s quite dif­fi­cult to re­turn after so many hot days and sweet nights un­der the sky of the Medi­ter­ranean Sea, after be­ing so close to the world’s soft­est breeze! As a writer feels it dif­fi­cult to re­turn to its writ­ing after he was away in Hawaii or after hav­ing been sick or any­thing the like, the same way it’s a bit dif­fi­cult for me, too, start­ing my au­tumn story, my life story, again and again.”

“Are you ask­ing your­self why do I be­gin telling you about the Medi­ter­ranean and all that stuff? Just be­cause, in my dreams, I wandered to my be­loved places where I spent my last cool sea­sons. I mean, here in East­ern Europe, it was the cool sea­son, but me and my friends were spend­ing time in our swim­suits and flip-flops, we were not ac­tu­ally long­ing for sum­mer, be­cause there, by the sea, we had a lot of fun play­ing with the sun­set… and we used to fly with the breeze… So re­fresh­ing, so cool! And now, oh, I feel it’s a bit dif­fi­cult to un­der­stand! For us, everything would be very dif­fi­cult if we stayed and tried to ad­mire winter in the Carpath­i­ans! We must fly away to warmer places. For us there’s sum­mer all the year round! But don’t you think we some­times long for the places where we dwelt dur­ing your winter time? Yes, we do. That’s why I some­times dream so keenly of those be­loved South­ern places! And I even paint them while I’m here!”

“Even if I rarely talk, even if I ut­ter strange sounds like ‘cla-cla!’ or ‘plack-plack-plack!’, I’m not a tough girl. I’m sens­ible, I have feel­ings of my own! I sing when I en­joy life, I give sound to the mu­sic of my soul when I’m happy see­ing all my fam­ily around – my hus­band and my young. I like people, that’s why I lift my head, I let my head back­side and say: ‘plack-plack’! And they’ve got to like me, too! In spring people see me com­ing and they come out and be­gin to hoe their gar­dens hap­pily. Don’t you see? When we re­turn here, in March, they wave at us and they are glad as they see in us, storks, a sign of prosper­ity and of good luck! They also say – or they used to say – that we bring them the ba­bies. No, we don’t bring them such things, but we bring them joy in­stead, and one more thing: ba­bies born in spring are lucky as they open their eyes to life the same mo­ments when up here, on the top of a post, our stork chicks get to open theirs to the world! How amaz­ing that can be! But when the rusty leaves cover the earth, for fear of catch­ing a bad cold, we’re sad, we’re com­pletely lost as we don’t know how many of us and of our kids will suc­ceed in break­ing the air and reach far-away South­ern lands safely… Men call their weak­ness then ‘au­tumn as­thenia’ but in fact, it is nature-re­lated sad­ness. It’s, in fact, the leaf-fall­ing-bird de­par­ture — hu­man sad­ness relation.”

“Why does my twis­ted knee look like a tree? And why does a fall­ing leaf act like a thief? Just be­cause the winds blow, the leaves steal souls… Be­cause the knees will one day get un­der the leaves, melt away, mix with the ground that suc­ceeds in not catch­ing a cold. After years pass, they be­come trees… This is what I think of when I pick straws or sticks or leaves in or­der to re-shape my nest in spring. The mo­ment I can see the re­flec­tion of my white body and long legs in the mir­ror of the wa­ter, the mo­ment I hate frogs and all the in­sects I used to swal­low by the pond, that mo­ment I think about all these things. ‘Think, said the Robin/ think said the Jay/ Sit­ting in the garden/ Talk­ing one day’ (Al­lan Fisher – Bird Talk). So, we think, as they think, we feel heat, cold, hatred and happiness.”

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“The day when I saw that hol­low… that kind of door in the depth of the swamp… I don’t know what it was… But I felt I lacked the cour­age to go back there and see what it was… I know, I de­clare my­self a painter and that’s what I call cour­age as nobody in our phalanx was ever a painter! I have my tal­ents, yes, I can per­fectly design a new and com­fort­able nest for my young­sters, but for the mo­ment I haven’t got the cour­age to reach that spot and see what’s be­hind that portal…”

Maria Ar­delean

(writ­ten 12 Dec. 2019)