Spotting Pigeons

Kiki can do it best. But she sees no reason in it.

"There are enough birds," she argues. "Do something more productive with your time."

Maybe there is something juvenile and fanciful in those chalk drawings, but I am drawn to them anyway. So I set a goal to draw one each day. Of course, for a waywardly minded child like myself, this was a very serious pursuit, of even greater importance than the acquisition of a new doll each holiday or wheedling another cookie from Mama after dinner.

I drew on my walls first, but when I ran out of space on the green striped wall paper, I began drawing on the side of our house.

Mama and Papa did not see it. They insisted I come in for dinenr on time and wash my hands, though I tried to explain that chalk is quite clean. It is white and therefor not as filthy as dirt. I pointed at the doors on the wall, told them what to expect. But they paid no more attention than if I had pointed at a common pigeon.

Kiki agreed to keep it secret after that, out of sheer indifference I suspect, than actual sisterhood.

But I drew more doors. There are a wealth of birds in the world today because of me. At least, I would like to think there still are and they haven't washed away in the rain like the chalk doors they flew from. It is hard to tell.

I gave up drawing chalk doors long ago, when white birds lost their appeal.

Still, I halt on the street whenever I see a white pigeon, and squint to see if perhaps the wing is jagged, he beak curved too much, an indication of my attempts to capture pigeon anatomy proportionately in my hastily rendered drawings as a child.

Kiki, sometimes on these walks with me, will halt beside me. Then, as though times have not changed, she will haul me away by my elbow.

I always have the urge to look back and see if the pigeon is watching me walk away. Probably not.

Text by Lucie MacAulay