Stubborn Dove

When I heard the noise — a startling “thwack” — I had no idea what it could be. When it happened a second time just moments later, I turned to look, catching sight of a flutter of wings and a brownish-grayish blur that scratched along the glass then disappeared.

I resumed my tap-tap-tapping. It was early. I was emailing in bed, still sipping my first cup of coffee.

When I heard the third thwack, I was incredulous. I glanced at the window and saw a patch of soft, pearly gray chest slip down then out of view. It was a mourning dove. I wondered how and why it could so mistakenly, painfully and stubbornly slam itself into a solid surface. Foolish bird, I thought.

Then I smiled. Not because I like to think of any living thing being hurt, but because I love mourning doves — their relentless, soulful, high-pitched coo when they seem to be on a sunrise roll, and the way they travel in twos and are content to perch on a wall or a ledge or a branch together. There was something in the symbolism of this particular bird’s persistence, however misguided, in thinking it was taking the right path. Somewhere, I was certain, its mate would titter and fuss over its mistake and lead it back to a safe spot on the tree nearby.

*

The dove, symbol of peace. The right path, which we all hope we’ve chosen. Stubbornness? One might euphemistically (and helpfully) label it persistence, perseverance or singleminded focus.

Peace, the right path, perseverance. These words come to mind all too frequently when picking up a newspaper or skimming headlines in the latest feed. Their clarity. Their necessity. Their fragility.

*

I opened the letter because I had no idea what was inside and I was worried. An unsolicited mailing and a fat one at that? From the doctor’s office?

I paged through a thick form, nervous and a bit confused. Then I got it. It was some kind of paperwork that my physician must have been required to complete and send — yet one more insanely tangled thread of a simple story I began last year as I attempted to properly dispose of a bottle of medication. Its inside seal had been opened somewhere along the distribution channel before I picked it up.

In this latest bizarre episode, the doctor had apparently been notified of my mention of the benign side effect (that disappears) from pauses in normal usage, this mention after being passed from one (pharmaceutical manufacturer) phone rep to another and politely attempting to answer (unrelated) questions. The pharmaceutical customer service rep had complicated a nothing-much aside, and my physician’s completion of forms misreported both the purpose and doses of the medications that I routinely take.

There are only three of these — none of them anything special, though one is stupidly expensive even with insurance. Of the three, one was left off the list altogether. The second was mischaracterized and without context relative to adverse effects from a higher dosage (the doctor had insisted I try it; I was quickly returned to my usual tiny dose). The third was reported for the wrong medical condition and at the wrong dose — four times higher than what I take.

Is this part of the reason the physician wants to change an Rx that has worked for 20 years — because she didn’t hear me when I told her the dose and the condition it was for, or she didn’t believe me, or the administration in this office (like all the others at this location) is so overloaded they make minor (or major) mistakes in record keeping?

After making my way through the forms, I was livid. I was disheartened. I was suddenly terribly, terribly tired.

How many times must I start from zero with a new physician and see that they get the basics wrong? This is not the only time since my latest move a year ago. This may be the fifth or sixth or seventh; I’ve lost count. I’m tired of beating my head against a wall. Or a window. Thwack.

*

(Ridiculous) debates over funding multi-trillion-dollar health insurance don’t get to the guts of the issues that so many of us deal with, over and over and over again. The inefficiency of health care delivery with its systemic abuses. The overloaded physicians who are forced to shuttle patients through in conveyor belt fashion. The arbitrary nature of coverage exclusions. The cost of prescription drugs.

Are we fighting over who can boast and brandish the shiniest object? Are we headed for a crash and a fall? Don’t we need a tender current to uplift us and a win?

*

Outside my former apartment (last year and the year before that), in a less urban environment, I would marvel at the pair of mourning doves that used to visit my back deck. They were fat, smug, strangely compelling creatures, perching themselves on a wide gray railing and always together. I loved peeking through the mini-blinds to see them nudge and snuggle and follow one another along the perimeter of the railing, occasionally flying off to the branch of a nearby myrtle, only to return to the deck minutes later.

*

Oh, that silly, stubborn bird! Is its vision off? Is it easily distracted? The window it smacked abuts a four-story tree with a gently leafing canopy only just surrendering to autumn’s takeover. Nearby is a crepe myrtle with pretty pink blooms in spring and summer, now relegated to a less flirty albeit cheery green. Both trees are tucked in a small courtyard behind a city street of hundred-year-old buildings. Just beyond my view, who knows how many wild things make their home in those branches or on rooftops alongside?

I see nests in the winter when the branches are bare.

*

I love the idea that a covey of winged creatures convenes their cooing to start each morning’s program of activities: my (absurdly) early rising; my upstairs neighbor’s seven a.m. bath (I hear it through the pipes); the dog walkers and runners and students whose bustling about begins well after daybreak. And the birds, of course, ignore us, avoid us, and perhaps wonder why we so stubbornly go through the same (foolish?) motions each morning.

Still, how did that dove not realize it was smacking into a window? Doesn’t the adage “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me” apply to a misguided bird that was fooled three times? How often are we fooled by what we hear, what we see, what we read, what we are told though it is secondhand or third hand or entirely concocted?

*

When I used to travel to Europe with my (ex) husband — when we were engaged, then newly wed, then in the years just after our children were born — sleeping in his parents’ home in the village where he was raised, the sound of mourning doves would wake us. He found their rituals annoying. I, on the other hand, adored their daybreak calls that married music to a happy time in my life. Perhaps that is why I still find their song so sweet.

Most mourning doves mate for life although some only commit for a season. Nonetheless, they are steadfast in that season, caring for each other and for their young, together.

*

This morning, I am wistful though most mornings I am stubborn. Stubbornly fighting my tendency to rage at foolishness, at waste, at my own fatigue as I face the same battles again and again like so many others, at complexity where it damages those caught in its tangle, at idealism that is so enamored of its reflection that it neglects the pragmatism that could advance the game. I will have to correct my physician’s mischaracterized (and outright inaccurate) records… eventually. God knows how many times I will fail at that simple task, even as I relay clear, simple, documented facts.

This morning, though I haven’t yet heard the doves, I am hopeful. The sun is up, the seasonal chill is bracing, and I am energized. I choose my synonyms in all their uplifting nuance: persistence, perseverance, singleminded focus.

 

You May Also Enjoy

• My Little Plant, as Metaphor

• Getting Back on the Horse

• When a Small Win Is a Big Deal

• I Am (No Longer) Superwoman. So Now What?