The "Police-Couple" - The Jays

The Birds - my Compagnions

© Regina Franziska Rau
Spring 1989
Hausham - near lake Schliersee - Bavaria
There was a time, when I spent my time in the mountains in a lonesome cottage with a few friends. There, the water still had to be heated on the wood oven. There was no bath either, but a brook was gurgling joyfully nearby the cottage.

One day I went to the forest nearby, with a notepad and pencil in my hand. There in that silence and seclusion I wanted to write a letter, that had already been on my mind for a very long time.
This place seemed suitable to me in order to concentrate completely on my thoughts and feelings.

The forest was moist from the clouds, that where hanging deeply. I walked around thoughtfully for a while. I wanted to find a suitable place to sit down. I found a stub between the densed firs, that I liked. I sat down and pondered about my feelings and how I could grasps everything in words and to the paper.... the pencil drew its lines heavily on the paper, the thoughts didn't want to appear clearly. It seemed to me as if no words could be found for what I wanted to express.

Suddenly, a tender chat sounded behind me - I felt reminded of the starlings in springtime, when they tell one another their long stories full of devotion.

The sound was so close, that I could not imagine at all, what it could be. I didn't move. Something was there behind me croaked. Once vigorously, once conciliatorily. And I sat there rootedly, to not scare away the creature. It remained and continued "telling" I said quietly: " Fine! I will turn around now!" and I rotated into the direction, from which I heard the voice in an especially slow slow-motion speed.

I didn't believe my eyes. A jay sat on a branch almost on eye height in front of me, held its little head crooked and looked at me. "Tell me once - if that is a fairy-tale, the picture will probably immediately fade! I will now turn around again, and if you are still there, when I look again - well, then I might me right in the middle of a fairy-tale now!" maybe!, I said. Then, I turned around slowly and continued writing my letter. For a few moments, it was actually quiet. A few lines later the same chatting started again - only this time a little more "important"

I laid down my notepad and turned again slowly. Now two jays sat cuddled togethher on that branch and gazed at me tenderly. It was only about 78 inches (2 meters) to the branch, on which they sat in eye height with me. While I looked at them, they cuddled together even more comfortably. "You are really beautiful creatures!" I said to them. "Definitely, you want to tell me something! But unfortunately I don't yet understand your language so well. You probably wanted to introduce your companion to me. That is very dear from you. You match really wonderfully. Did you want to show me something with it probably?! Thanks to you both! I will now turn around again and finish writing my letter."

Momentarily, I felt as if somebody had taken away a heavy weight from my heart. I turned back to my letter and had the feeling, that a curtain was raised from my heart. The fear that I could not speak out what was moving me faded away, and the pencil seemed to fly across the paper just by itself.

When I had finished my letter and stood up to walk back to the cottage, the two birds were gone. But the smile on my face and in my heart had remained.

 
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