Forty Minutes with a Pigeon

There was a pigeon on my windowsill this morning and I want to be clear that I did nothing, nothing, for the better part of an hour because of him.

He showed up around eight-fifteen, which I know because I had just made coffee and was thinking about doing the thing where I write before I do anything else. Instead I stood at the counter with my mug and watched him. He had the specific confidence of a bird who has decided that your window ledge is his now. He turned his head. He ruffled. He looked out at the street with what I can only describe as an opinion about it. I did not move. I did not get my notebook. I turned off the burner I had left on under nothing, and I stood there.

The subject of the morning.

At some point I took a picture with my phone because I wanted proof that this had happened, but mostly I just, watched. There's something about a creature that has no idea you exist, doing its creature things three feet from your face, that makes you feel like you accidentally got let in on something. Gerald was right there on the sill too, as always, completely unimpressed. The collapsed bowl was right there too. The pigeon had opinions about none of it.

And then he left.

He left around nine. I wrote in my notebook for twenty minutes after that and then had a second cup of coffee, which I don't usually do. It felt like the right response to having had my morning rearranged by a bird. I'm not complaining. Some mornings you plan, and some mornings a pigeon plans for you.