At the end of countless winter days without sunshine and multiple windy drama and cold weather tantrums, we are pleased to see the cold scurry back north. Don’t let the screen door hit you on the way out. Any excuse to be outdoors, even at the site of our city’s former waste management system, Mitchell Lake. The 600-acre site is on the south side of San Antonio, no surprise since stuff rolls downhill. Thankfully, our sewage collection is modern and today Mitchell Lake is no longer used for its previous purpose. The Audubon Society and its volunteers operate the site as a refuge for native and migratory birds and for folks like the four of us who enjoy watching them.
Years ago, the site’s various lakes were full, but today the drought has dried up most. There are still two large ponds with plenty of water. That’s where we hiked to watch the water birds. Duck, geese and several other interesting birds, such as the black necked stilt and the yellow-rumped warbler were some identified by my friends using binoculars. Myself, I’m a lazy bird watcher, happy just to be outdoors calling out, “Pretty bird!!” when someone points out somebody flashy in a treetop.
We walked around the pond full of mostly ducks and geese and watched as they bickered with each other, steered on the water like bumper cars at a carnival, and dove underwater, when suddenly -- the sound of our steps-- or maybe it was something internal in the flock, set off an alarm. The entire population airlifted from the water like at the start of a race. Feet paddled and wings batted and a loud, whoosh of wing beats clapped over us in a white thundercloud of feathers. I’ve seen this mass movement of birds before in movies or on TV documentaries set an Africa, but I have never been covered underneath one in real life, nor had I ever heard thousands of rasping, folding, flapping feathers. It was a muffled roar, a crackling wave, much louder than I expected. I craned my neck to follow their collective undulation, a creature the length and width of a football field. All the individual pretty birds became something so big and breathtaking. A whale in flight leaping to a new pond.
The previous day, on a street corner inside the city loop, the line of patrons outside of a Mexican café extended to about 15 people, waiting in various levels of eye- blinking surprise at the sun’s warmth. No one watched us through binoculars to my knowledge. That afternoon it had showered over San Antonio and the sun peeked through retreating clouds. It was glorious to be outdoors. We were giddy with excitement over the Tex-Mex lunch that we knew would deliver carbs and comfort in generous quantities.
We met friends there who arrived minutes before we did and held our place in line. We hugged and in the style of people made lonesome by the pandemic’s forced separations, I was approached by a man I didn’t know who stood in line behind me. He appeared to be Anglo, well-groomed and in his mid- seventies. He pointed across the busy street to a young woman on the sidewalk. She walked in a confident stride towards a row restaurants and antique stores. She wore a skirt with, no, I’m not kidding you, multiple petticoats. And she was no square dancer.
“I haven’t seen petticoats since the 1950s!” the man said with true surprise and pleasure. I told him I hadn’t either. But I didn’t tell him that I had not miss petticoats, remembering only the stiff and prickly material biting my tender underside as a child when my mother could still wrestle me inside of such a cage. The line to the restaurant’s front door inched forward. An African American man, mid-50s wearing a derby hat, ambled out of the restaurant onto the sidewalk.
“I regret to inform you that I have eaten all the enchiladas and flour tortillas! There are none left,” he announced, in a lively, theatrical voice.
I raised my eyebrows at him in amused disbelief.
“Oh, is that so?”
In his formal voice he announced, “I’m afraid I ate them all.”
He paused for effect. “There are none left. “
“You’re a storyteller, huh?” I asked.
“A raconteur,” he said. I nodded in agreement.
“You know that’s a storyteller!” His partner, a Mexican American like me rolled her eyes. She, and a teenaged girl waited patiently behind him. This is what a raconteur does, and his family was used to it. ‘We are not amused’ described their expressions.
The Derby hatted gentleman relished having a curbside audience and turned his attention to a pair standing beside us in line, a slender, fit Anglo couple in their mid 60s.
“Haven’t we met before?” the derby hat wearing raconteur asked. The couple stood still.
“Wasn’t it Paris, in ’88? “asked the raconteur. The slender man jumped in feet first. “Why, yes! It was Paris! I was with the CIA then. Deep cover! “
Wife and child gently and expertly pulled the raconteur away.
We giggled at the impromptu performance brought to us courtesy of the warm sun, a break from our collective isolation, or maybe it was just the enchiladas. Beside us two elder hippies, with loads of gray hair, each in hastily made ponytails, their noses deep in yellowed paperback books, did not glance up during this entire intercontinental exchange. Such is the power of a good plot. Or their ability to tune out the world.
We were called into the café. Soon we were ushered by a trainee waiter to our table where we ordered enchiladas and fideo loco. The bookish couple were seated by the wall near us. They ate enchiladas and continued reading. The Anglo couple who might or might not have been in Paris in ‘88 sat beside us and chatted quietly. The spell cast upon the sidewalk players in the sunshine was over. I keep hoping that it won’t be the last time I fall like a dime down a sidewalk grill into an alternative reality.
The next day, after birdwatching, I kept thinking about that cloud of feathers above me and how the flock followed a signal to move to a new pond, acting in unison. They, like we, the sidewalk players, stopped in our tracks, noticed the petticoats, laughed at corny jokes, ate our lunches and did what people do who want to be done with a pandemic. We followed a signal, trusted our instincts, our companions, and their chatter. Our identities and histories were set aside, if only for a short time, for the collective comfort of each other’s company.
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