June 15, 2020: Points of View
Shelter in Place, San Francisco, California
I was surprised and delighted when John fell for this fellow in the garden shop in Sutter Creek and insisted we bring him home. John hates crows. At least the ones around here. The crows we know are certainly noisy, especially when they feel threatened by our infrequent visitor, the neighborhood red-tailed hawk. High overhead, they encircle him, and dive and screech until, without a nod in their direction, the hawk turns effortlessly toward other perches in other neighborhoods and yards.
A pair of crows raised a family in a nearby tree last year. And, while I appreciated the cooperative parenting evident in the nest and managed (mostly) to ignore the way the birds scolded us for watching, John scolded them right back. Crows are very smart, I know (my sister considers them to be sacred) and evidently reward those humans that are nice to them with random, glittery gifts - pennies, beads, foil, and the like. I doubt that John and I will ever find small trinkets on our deck. But like it or not - noisy pests, sacred friends or something in-between - the crows are part of our garden life, including this, John’s favorite, with an air plant and bucket in his beak.
Reading this weekend’s commentary and news about the ‘occupation’ of a Seattle neighborhood reminded me of the ways in which we perceive events and people through our own lenses and experience. Depending on the reader/watcher’s point of view and the particular reporting news outlet, the closing of the neighborhood to police became a “communist takeover,” a “threat to law and order,” or a “street festival” and “party.” To some, the lack of civil order represented freedom from oppression; to others, a chance to show off what love and peace can do when folks are left to their better natures; and to others still, a danger to society and a threat to the American way of life. Certainly, the photographs I’ve seen seem tame enough - mostly the colorful chalking of streets, free food hand-outs, family games, and lots and lots of bicycles - but I get that others have seen the pictures differently (or have seen different pictures).
Whatever the truth turns out to be - anarchy, utopia, or something in-between - I think, I hope, that the people of Seattle are left alone to figure it out and that nobody sends in the National Guard to impose a point of view.