San Francisco Blackbird

The airport is…a nonplace in which there is no hope of any meaningful existence.                                                                                                            —Ursula K. Le Guin

Phil and I are not fond of travel by air. Airports are stressful and passage through security increases the tension. We barely endure the sardine seating, noise, and bad air. Aging has amplified our intolerance: we don’t recover like we used to. This time, after the ordeal, when we just wanted a nap, the rental car line snaked halfway to infinity. Three hours later, in the rush hour we’d hoped to avoid, we reached our rented apartment.

The apartment was pleasing, small wood-burning stove in a corner of the living room, patio doors onto a sunny backyard deck. We unpacked and I was making an inventory of the kitchen when Phil said, “something’s living in the stove.” I listened. Nothing. Then, leaving for our daughter’s, a scrabbling and signature fluttering.

We had a bird in the house once. Though we opened all the doors it flew wildly into windows and walls, knocking things over. We looked at the cut glass vases of lilies, a sweet welcome from Diane, our landlady. We had no phone reception in this ground floor place. The bird would have to wait. Our daughter was making lasagna, as we learned at the airport when our younger grandson and his father came to surprise us.

We’ve visited nearly every year since Shane was a toddler, before Chance was born. Now they are fifteen and ten. We have traditions, take the boys to their choice of summer movies—this year “Man of Steel” and “Monsters U.” They consume their weight in popcorn and after the movie get burgers and fries. Our grandsons are good company and we always learn a thing or two. Selected grandson wit, 2013:

Chance: Sometimes adults have conversations like I’m not there. They think I’m buzzing in my child world, but I actually listen to them.

Shane: Wackiness is in the eye of the beholder.

Telling a vacation story which his parents and brother guess incorrectly, Chance spreads his arms and declares: “None of these people know what I’m talking about.”

Shane: It’s the 40-year rule. Everything comes back after 40 years. I can’t wait til 2020 when the 90s will be back.

We returned to the Comics Museum this year for a Superman exhibit. Grandpa and the boys loved it, but I liked the historic room. Since we’re enjoying a fresh round of paranoia about government spying, Bill Maudlin’s 1973 cartoon was especially tasty. A wife and husband are reading in bed, and Nixon’s giant face peers at them through a corner of their TV screen. The woman exclaims: “Good Lord! The set isn’t even on!” The cartoon meets Shane’s 40-year rule, but for politics I think the cycle is usually five to ten.

Going to the store that first night for our breakfast supplies, we learned plastic bags are now outlawed and paper ones cost a dime. No more plastic bags swinging from the trees in San Francisco. And it was too late to call Diane, whose number I’d forgotten to bring.

The apartment’s on the Great Highway, across the dunes from the beach, a busy location, but at the back of the building. Once inside, we heard nothing, not even, on foggy days, the mournful foghorn. A tree dropped spent blossoms onto the wooden deck. An orange cat soft-footed down deck stairs to peer at us. A flutter of wing in the stove.

A bird in the house presages death, according to some folklore. Others say it means important news coming. The chimney pipe is wide. It fell down there somehow. All evening this bird was a shadow flitting through my mind.

The Great Highway’s paved path bears constant bikers, joggers and dog walkers. I zipped my jacket. It was 65 and windy that morning, sand blowing across the road. The climb up soft sand dunes and down the loose decline is rewarded by arrival at the surf-smoothed shore. Less crowded there. My lungs filled with cool salt air so much richer in oxygen than in Denver.

Beyond the breakers, four surfboarders waited for the right wave. They parked on our street, pulled on black wetsuits. Three fishermen in rubber boots cast in surf. Two women walked five small dogs. A young man in black strode steadily ahead of me until I lost sight of him in the mist. Gigantic container ships heading to sea seemed to perch on top of the water at the horizon before they dropped from sight. Atop the dunes, I had reception, called Diane as soon as the hour seemed decent enough.

She appeared holding an old sheet, planned to open the stove door while draping the sheet over it. This seemed a doubtful strategy, but at least any broken china would not be our fault. We shut the bedroom door, set patio doors wide. When Diane cracked the black door to the black interior she at first saw nothing. Then the bird moved, startling her into shutting the door again. When she reopened it, the blackbird seized its chance, flew straight for the bright backyard, raising a spontaneous cheer from all three of us as it disappeared into the blue, taking my worries with it.

A bird in the house may be an ominous symbol, but freeing a bird is something else. Freeing a bird can bring you luck. Freeing a bird frees something in you.