As I was thinking about Beth’s Where is Home for You? contest, about the responses to the contest on Patti’s 37Days FaceBook page, and about my own article on the subject, a chickadee landed on the bird feeder just outside my window. It occurred to me that this little creature might have some thoughts on the subject.

I started by asking her name, and the answer she chirped back didn’t translate into any phoneme I know of, so for this interview I’m calling her Unique Chickadee, since I think that’s what her name means:

Dave: OK Ms Chickadee, could you please start by telling me what you do for a living, and what you do just for fun?

Unique Chickadee: What I “do for a’livin”? Very musical expression, but I have no idea what you mean.

Dave: What you do to feed and shelter yourself and your family, then. And then what you do with the time left over.

Unique Chickadee: Hmmm. I do what you see me do. I do whatever I like. As you told your friend the other week, the best way to describe it is to say “I do…this.” I eat stuff that’s tasty. I sleep in the shelter of the trees because it’s cozy and comfortable and just because I like to do it. I splash in the water to get clean, especially with others, and just because I like to do it. I fly, to look around, to meet others, to discover new places, and just because I like to do it. I sing, to communicate, to identify myself, to keep myself company, and just because I like to do it. I play, with others and by myself, because that’s how I learn, and just because I like to do it. I don’t see the distinction between your a’livin activities and fun activities. I do all these things because I want to. They’re all easy, and they’re all fun. As for family, I’m not in a breeding pair, so except for the Time of Newborns, when I help out the parents of the babies, protecting their nest from attack, finding sources of food and so on, I need only look out for myself.

Dave: I thought birds were flock creatures?

Unique Chickadee: I have been a part of several flocks in my life. Like most of us, I’m a bit of a rover, and if I find a flock that needs me more than the one I’m with, I’ll ask to join them. My Purpose is To Be Of Use, but that’s never a burden. We help each other out, but our a’livin is pretty easy and carefree. By the way, we’d love a birdbath out by the feeder. Yes, we know all about your cat — he’s fast and clever, but so are we.

Dave: Not my cat. Not sure he belongs to anyone, really.

Unique Chickadee: Really? Far too pampered to survive without a human keeper. He must belong with one of the other humans in your community.

Dave: Who are you, or what are you, other than what you do, if that isn’t too philosophical a question?

Unique Chickadee: I am who you see. I am me, Unique Chickadee. If you are asking what I believe, what I think about and care about, what I aspire to, what I enjoy, what I am capable of that I don’t do, what qualities I have that make me good at what I do, that is another question. Is that what you mean?

Dave: OK, yes, I guess so.

Unique Chickadee: I believe all-life-on-Earth is wonderful. I think about visiting new places, and I imagine doing new things. I care about my well-being and that of my flock. I aspire to love everyone and everything I encounter. I enjoy intuiting and learning, the fruits of my discovery. I am capable of imagining things I have never seen or heard or felt. I have the useful capacities of patience and attentiveness and appreciation and playfulness. You put too fine a point on this distinction between what we do and who we are. When I am by myself I sing, for the sheer joy of it, and maybe someone else will hear me and enjoy my song or maybe no one will hear. It doesn’t matter. You told your friend you are a writer, a ‘blogger’, and that you’re impatient because you’re not ‘doing’ anything. Can’t you see how silly that is? Your blogging is just like my singing to myself. It’s what we do, it’s who we are, it’s all the same thing.

Dave: Is there something latent in you, something that you need to be or do, or that your flock needs you to be or do?

Unique Chickadee: I don’t understand the meaning of ‘need’. This word makes no sense to me.

Dave: Do you ever feel lonely, or sad, or as if you’re missing something?

Unique Chickadee: Not for a second. This is a world full of love and joy and connection. It is all right here. I am astonished at how you humans have tricked yourselves into seeing this world of abundance as a world of scarcity.

Dave: So you don’t long to be part of a mating pair, to make love?

Unique Chickadee: I ‘make love’ with every creature I meet in different ways in everything I do. Everyone I meet and sing with and play with is my ‘mate’. You said it yourself last week: Love, Conversation, Community. That’s why we’re here. The act of sexual coupling carries with it a huge responsibility, and I don’t feel that instinctive desire to accept that responsibility that the breeders do. It’s more trouble than it’s worth. I don’t want to be that unhappy.

Dave: OK, last question: Where is Home, to you? Where do you belong?

Unique Chickadee: You spoke to your friend recently about how time and place are bound up with each other. We non-humans live in Now Time. Your Clock Time, that passes and is gone and fills you with regret for what was or what might be or what should be or what might have been, it is just an abstraction, a human artifact, designed to keep you in thrall to the other humans who want you to be everybody-else, obedient, fearful, helpless, dependent, full of grief. You have to relearn that all time is Now Time, there is no other time, and that Now Time is eternal, limitless. For the same reason, we live in Now Space. When we nest, when we hibernate, when we migrate, when we move from one flock to another, we are always Home, we can never be elsewhere, this is where we belong. This is it. 

Dave: I don’t understand.

Unique Chickadee: I know. I’m sorry. I think your brain is in the way. Keep watching. Pay attention. Listen to your instincts, and to the songs of all-life-on-Earth. You’ll figure it out. You’re pretty smart, for ahuman.