“Just as we cannot imagine what we cannot see, we cannot see what we only imagine.”
― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities
When I was a child there was a bluebird. From the moment I awoke it was by my window, and if I ever fell asleep to dreams of its kind smile and its blackbird’s eyes, there at the window again it would be. Always when it saw me wake it would chirp, and gently tap its foot as if to remind me of the small secrets it left. When I went out to play in the yard this bird followed me. When I went inside to play in the house it followed me. It would also carry things the way poets carry words. Bare twigs and twigs with moss and leaves. Pebbles and the fluid remains of shower sprays. Fat balls of silver and gold and tar beneath heavy works of canvas. Beads of lapis and red, and embers of amber. Small harks and lures and primitively polished ovals of smooth river rock. Sometimes it would carry a small shard of painted glass. Its little gifts would be cleverly tied in its blackbird’s tail feathers and then placed at my feet. And in return for the many that fell to the ground as I went about my day, small notes might also be left. Sometimes written on scraps from my mother’s dresser or my father’s brief case, or on the small maps or bits of heart shaped candy that had fallen in my way.
Once my parents went away for the weekend. When I awoke on a rainy Sunday morning I found the most fabulous of bluebird’s gifts. A fine wicker basket, covered in soft cloth, and held fast with a strip of lace. On top there was a small note. Open this only if there is an emergency. I was only a child. I had an emergency.
I was getting the blues. I had found the most perfect gift of all, a small piece of glass. Just a shard, but so perfectly round and smooth. It was smooth as a marble, and it had a deep blue color that seemed to swirl. I wanted to keep it. I wanted to make it a treasure. I wanted to make it mine. But, I had heard my father telling my mother how the other parents at school were getting wind of the dangers of shatter and that there was a strict no breakage or possession policy. I had seen my brother, Scot, brought home from school in tears because all of the other children would not play with him because his toys ‘might snap into many pieces.’ I felt terrible. To protect myself, I carefully slipped it in the pocket of my little pink tutu. I put it on a shelf with all of the other treasures. I did not want it being destroyed.
When my father returned home to find the basket empty, he got very, very upset. I remember him tearing the house apart. It was almost midnight when he returned home. He said the school had called, and that they wanted everyone equipped in a large medical bag. “If you start breaking or putting pieces in your mouth,” he told me, “your mother will have no choice but to call the Shatter Recovery Squad.”
I was so confused. How could you break glass? I thought glass was unbreakable.
My brother Scot was being taken to the hospital, as were the children in my class and the children from my neighbor’s school. I heard about the new rules. It was clear why they were new. And it was clear why they would not want anyone to remember what we feared that day.
The next night, just as I was falling asleep, I heard a terrible shattering sound. As I heard the first window break, I began to pray. I prayed that my pebble would never shatter. I prayed that all the bits of glass on my shelf would never break. And, I prayed and prayed for the health of my Valentine’s Day heart cookie. I stayed up the whole night, holding it close to me, waiting for the noise to end. Finally, in the morning, I heard their car drive away.
“And yet, behind all this, I felt a freedom of spirit never known to me in the city, and the future appeared both gay and varied.”
― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities
I would awake every day that week with a sense of confusion at who and what I was. As time went on, I became even more confused. I felt like I was not supposed to see the broken windows. The school said that it was dangerous to see, but it was a complete mystery to me.
One day when I was older, I returned to my old house. I had just moved to another city and I was finding it hard to settle. As I would walk through the blackbirds yard, something was horribly wrong. Everything was different. Everything was wrong. I felt confused. Confused almost to the point of tears.
