Close to nature

In my daughter’s house one lives very close to nature. It is a very civilized subdivision with big houses but nevertheless you feel very close to nature. In the morning you wake up to the wild screeching of what sounds like a big bird but it’s invisible. I can’t find it. I peer through the trees. I see the small gray-brown ones that look smug but make a cooing gurgling fascinating noise, that makes me think of  “bato-bato sa langit ang tamaan huwag magagalit” but I don’t know if they are bato-bato.

 There were a couple of big black birds, which could be crows, and I wonder if they were the ones that woke me  with their ungodly shrieks but as I stared at them they didn’t make a noise.  So, I don’t know. From the forest next door across our cleared garden flew a big bright yellow and black bird. Oriole, I thought, though I suspect an oriole is an American bird. I looked it up in Google and while there is one small photo of a bird whose yellow matches it exactly, the picture isn’t large enough or detailed enough for me to say – yes, that’s it!

 There are strange black and white birds, a bit bigger than our brown and white spotted sparrows who also make strange sounds and of course, there’s the ordinary chirping of the brown sparrow. One morning I saw one or two — they all look alike — flying from there to around the corner somewhere carrying a long blade of grass in its or their beaks.  I think they were building a nest.

 What a fine collection of birds!  I watched them every morning as I sat on her terrace doing my journal and my other rituals. 

Then suddenly there’s that noise — tu-ko, tu-ko.  My stomach contracts.  I am deathly afraid of lizards. The bigger and uglier they are the harder I fall. And the tuko here does its calls morning, noon, and night. Just so long as it’s outside the house, I whisper as I silently make my way back indoors closing all the doors firmly behind me, making sure there are no gaps where this huge ugly lizard might slide in.

All at once one morning I saw a fat orange and white cat sort of lying on the porch quite a distance away from where I sit. So I sit anyway but as soon as I do it meows at me. I am friendly with cats and dogs, so I meow back. It approaches me and sits near my chair. We meow at each other. The maid brings me coffee and comments, “He’s probably scrounging for food.”

“I thought it was a she,” I commented.

“No it’s a he, he has . . . you know. . .,” and I laugh. “I forgot to look,” I said. Soon I went in to write last week’s column on their home computer.

 My cell phone rang twice and stopped. Let me tell you about my ring tone. It’s a cat’s meow. I don’t know why but I was fiddling with it one day and saw a ringtone titled “Cat” and switched it on. Then the two maids who were cleaning near me went into a flurry. “The cat’s inside the house,” the tall thin maid said. “Where?” The short chubby maid said. “It’s here,” the tall thin maid said again.

 Then my phone rang again.  On the first ring the tall thin maid said, “There, don’t you hear it?”  And I had to laugh.  “It’s just my phone,” I said. “It’s the cat’s meow.”  The three of us burst into peals of laughter.

 But about two hours later the short chubby maid rushes in to ask if the car could bring the tall thin maid to the hospital because the orange and white cat had lunged at her and bit her wrist and they were quaking from fear of rabies. “Yes, of course,” I said, so off they went. Left to myself I wondered why the sweet tomcat had bitten her. He had been sweet to me exchanging meows just a few hours earlier. Why did he lunge and bite her leaving two rather deep punctures a few inches above her wrist? I wondered about that. He seemed like such a sweet-tempered animal. I even thought of maybe taking him home with me but I live on the 20th floor. What if he decided to jump off the porch ledge? Would he use up only one life or all nine of his mythical lives?

 But I never saw the orange cat again. Maybe he was afraid we’d have him arrested when he returned. But that’s life out in the country. You spend it with birds and cats and a form of violent crime. I guess that’s what happens when you live close to nature.

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