today i awoke without any mental health, having been hit sorta harder than usual of late by various upsetting world news, and grief, and whatever else, so after getting a few little things done at work i took the rest of the day off, and went to the park with a view to feeding the ducks, which is a way to replenish your mental health meter. i got more bird than i bargained for however.
the first thing that happened was, before i even approached the duck zone, i encountered two friendly larger-than-usual magpies who sang to me. i gave them some oats, and they were only a little bit interested in the oats, but it did ingratiate them to me. they approached me, increased their singing, and started just being visibly at ease and having fun. one of them pushed the other one over, and the pushed-over one sort of lay there on its side waving its legs around performatively. after some more singing they just sorta walked off together. it was like they were on a date. an older lady came over and we talked about how beautiful they were.
then! i brought my oats to the ducks, and made an immediate friend of a plucky little lady who ate right out of my hand. and then the pigeons came.
i was set upon by really quite a lot of pigeons. they were climbin’ all over me. luckily i am not any kind of snob when it comes to birds. i ended up staying for a long time and feeding all manner of bird. every so often a person would happen by and take an interest, and i would offer them some oats, which is how i met a nice girl called Maisie, and an elderly asian couple without much english who had never fed birds before, and some toddlers. everyone fed the ducks.
often when i am moved to do something like this for these sorts of reasons, i remember Laura Michet‘s goodbye-to-cohost post about the importance of the grass toucher lifestyle, which i don’t imagine she will mind my embedding below. it’s a good thing to keep in mind for anyone, but particularly when one’s work depends on staying just generally on people’s internet radars, which can make it difficult at times to remember to Log Off. i don’t think i actually suffer from this to the same degree as a lot of folks, it’s mostly “real life” stuff that really headshots me, but one must always remember to log off, and a duck is a wonderful thing.
only sorta related: here is an old vine i don’t want to lose so i’m putting it here. i don’t know who made it but it was posted on this twitter account at one point
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