Pop 89: Life List
By Madonna Hamel
Every birder has a life list - a wish list of all the birds they must see with their own eyes before they die. Hardcore birders will fly all the way to the other side of the world to tick off a flamingo or a pileated pecker. I wondered if David would even bother staying the night.
I was living in the Val Marie Convent at the time. Once the country school my mother attended in the 30s, it's now a B&B. In 2014, I was accepted as the writer-in-residence. The owners gave me the former Mother Superior's room in the basement next to the laundry. They referred to it as the Cinderella Room. It was all I needed - a comfortable bed with a cozy duvet, a closet, a sink and a chair. I felt like the Desert Mother I needed to be. I wrote in the upstairs chapel all day, every day, for three months.
In exchange for my room and use of the kitchen, all I was expected to do was write and eat breakfast with the guests. Many of them were from Europe or big Eastern cities and, like David, had never experienced the vastness of the prairie. Even Canadians don't expect a border town to be so remote, as most of our big cities tend to be huddled along the 49th.
David was a birder from Washington D.C. Arriving late one Friday evening, looking a bit dazed and lost, he told us he came because his birding app alerted him to dozens of Baird Sparrow sightings in The Grasslands. "It's on the top of my Life List," he explained. "So I booked a flight to Regina, rented a car and I've already checked off three more birds on my list, including the Baird! I almost turned around and headed home. But, hey, I came this far."
The next morning at breakfast, I took my coffee over to David's table in the corner, away from the long table set for all the guests. "How'd you sleep?" I asked. "It took a while," he said. "It's too quiet." "I guess it can be. But for me, it's just right," I laughed. He looked out the window. "It would be so lonely to live here. There's nothing for miles."
No doubt, it's a shock to the system for people who come from places like D.C.- ground zero of the American political system. "I've been there," I said. "The energy is palpable. Things are always changing, disrupting. The constant lobbying, charming, dealing … and that's not counting the racial stuff. Sorry. You don't need me telling you about your home."
"No it's true. You're not aware of how those vibes eat at you, until you leave. But coming here is the extreme opposite. It's spooky. Like I'm in a Western Movie. In a ghost town."
"It takes settling into. But it can be noisy too, when the wind picks up, sometimes for days on end. And the birds, you didn't hear them this morning? They woke me at 3:30 with their racket! By the way, There's a bird that makes a sort of whirring call. A kind of woo-woo-woo song. In the evening. It's haunting. I can never seem to spot it. Do you know what it is?"
"Well, actually, that's not a song. It's his tail. It's called the Wilson's Winnowing Snipe and what you're hearing is the winnowing sound it makes when it drops from the sky after doing concentric circles way up high. It fans its tail feathers and kinda freefalls."
"That's tail feathers making that sound?"
"Yep, they do it to attract a mate."
"Oh, like in The Harlem Shuffle: 'Shake your tail feathers, baby!'"
By the time David had finished his bacon and eggs he was ready to head back to 'civilization' as he knew it. "Just point me to the gas station."
"Oh, we don't have one," I said. "You have to go to Bracken. But I'll go with you. It's not far. And I'll show you a real ghost town on the way."
Three jars of unopened potato salad sat on a shelf of the abandoned grocery store. A pair of cowboy boots were parked by the hingeless door. On the wall hung a starburst clock stopped at 3:19." I pulled out my notepad.
"What's that you're writing?" David asked." This is my own Life List of found objects. Abandoned objects, actually. Things people leave behind, have no use for. I used to peel wallpaper to see how many layers were underneath and take a chunk. I wonder sometimes if it was the same family trying for a new look. And how many people lived here before it was abandoned? I realize it's disrespectful to take things. They're not mine to take. Nothing here is mine.
We got in his car and headed to Bracken where he filled his tank at the pump. "In D.C. we can't just just pull up and start pumping gas," he marveled. "We have to leave our card with the clerk behind the bullet-proof glass." He filled the tank and we walked into the Co-op. The woman behind the till, who also runs a B&B down the road, said hi and smiled at David, waiting patiently.
The two of them stood like that for a few seconds until, finally, she said: "Well, how much?" "How Much?" he repeated. "How much do you owe?" She said. "Oh," he said. "Just a sec". He stepped out to check the pump and returned. "54.36?" he said, looking stunned. "Ok," she said, plunking the price into the cash register. "That'll be 54.36." He handed over his card, looking as if he wasn't sure what just happened there. "Wow," he said, shaking his head as we walked back to his car. "That's a first. I think I'll have to start a new life list of my own."