Magic feather


• We knew that Archer had a birthday party at school today, because it was the last Friday for birthday parties and was designed to cover all the kids who had birthdays over the summer. Noel asked him what he had to eat at the party, and we were treated to this recitation, in which a reasonable amount of snack food quickly escalates out of control:

"A chocolate cupcake ... Doritos ... mixed juice ... four Chips Ahoy cookies ... vitamin D milk ... and Cheezits."

He then added: "Cheezits have 120 calories, and juice has 100 calories. Mom, your Coke has zero calories."

• This afternoon as I walked across the grass toward the parking lot, I saw a large black feather lying on the ground. It was about seven inches long, with a white shaft and a faint bluish tint to the smaller barbs. I walked two strides past it, then turned around and picked it up.

My first thought on seeing it was that Cady Gray would like it. On our neighborhood walks we often come to a corner where we frequently find small feathers. I don't know if birds have duels there or what, but it's a feathery place. Cady Gray always stops and hunts for a feather there, and if she finds one, she carries it in her little fist like Dumbo's magic feather as she barrels across the lawns toward home, usually listing slightly to port.

My second thought on seeing it, the one as I passed it by, was put in my head by my mom. Whenever we found feathers as kids, she always discouraged us from touching them. She said they carried mites. I can't help but think of feathers on the ground as dirty and slightly dangerous. (The other thing my mom always said was "dirty" was money. To this day I can't handle coins without a twinge of disgust.)

But my third thought was to put my mother's voice firmly out of my head. A feather is a magical thing. I've always loved them, their airfoil curve, their razor-thin edge, their blade-like surface, the soft way the barbs cling to each other. When I learned that birds are descended from dinosaurs, and that a feather is a specialized version of a reptilian scale, closely related to mammalian hair but in a different form, I couldn't have been more astounded or inspired. I never fail to think of that whenever I see a feather.

I brought the feather home to Cady Gray. On our walk today, she stopped and looked for feathers at the corner, but there were none there. When we got home, I gave her the crow feather. She examined it and showed it to Archer. Then before we went inside, we dropped it on the ground as we always do, in case the bird wants to come back and get it.

Maybe feathers are disease- or insect-ridden. But I don't want to pass up the magic.

Posted: Fri - June 1, 2007 at 07:11 PM         |

©