Studies in Shapeshifting

Ping, Juka!, this one’s for you.

So this is the thing: you cannot outrun a flash thunderstorm, which is racing along the surface of lake ontario. Okay…, maybe Mr. Eliud Kipchoge can actually outrun a thunderstorm. But slow as a snail dragging-its-belly-across-dry-pavement ayu, not so much. A few weeks ago, was at the start of my current favourite route around tommy thompson park, when in what seemed like the faraway distance, an ominous presence blighted the otherwise soft periwinkle hues that coated the air. Scant slivers of raindrops pierced my skin, drying up almost immediately upon contact. Phew, just a passing drizzle, i surmised as i willed with all my might for the storm clouds to recede away over the horizon. But no such luck. 

After diverting my eyes away for a second, a cumulonimbus mass closed in super fast. The once faint rumbling of hungry clouds grew louder and more persistent, followed by a scraggly flash of lightning, sparking up half of the sky. One mississippi..two mississippi..three mississippi…desperate ayu saying ‘mississippi’ as quickly as possible just to deceive myself into believing, that yes, the storm was sure to go around rather than pour down upon the man-made peninsula. One mississ—another bolt of lightning, this time more belligerent, and then that undeniably slippery smell of moist flesh rose from the ground, reaching like arms toward the heavens. How can a handful of humans desperately wishing away storm clouds ever compete with millions of worms ritualistically squirming for hydration of the parched earth? The birds chirped their delight. All you can eat worm buffet, yaho! 

Storm clouds were now immediately above me, lightning and thunder in a dynamic game of call and response. Inwardly shitting myself, began running as fast as poss in search of cover. As bulbous eggplant shadows blanketed the once bright blue sky, those scant droplets suddenly morphed into huge-ass globules. It’s as if someone threw a pitcher, no, pitchers of water on me. Drenched in less than 10s. Hollered out, “fuuuuuuuuucccckkkkk meeeeeeeeee…!” as my feet stomped through freshly formed rivulets in the now mud-ridden path. Bicyclists whizzed by, splashing me further – who cared anymore, you can’t get wetter than completely wet, right? – one fellow calling out over his shoulder in encouragement, “you’re okay, just keep going”. Ah, thank you, fuck you, jealous of the speed of your escape, wiry bicycle man, but thank you nonetheless. Finally, found shelter under the cement awning of the abandoned information centre. Four bicyclists were already perched there, waiting out the storm. Clothing clung to me like saggy second skin and nipples hardened enough to slice through glass. Teeth began chattering uncontrollably so struck up a conversation with the grey-bearded fellow next to me in order to distract myself from the cold seeping into my pores. “Hi.”

Looking off into the distance, he said, “the other day, passed a group of young guys playing soccer. Storm came all around them but goddamn idiots kept playing! Couldn’t believe it. I know that exercise is important and all, but is it worth getting hit by lightning?”

“Yah, they’re stupid,” i responded. We sat in silence with the woman next to us for a long while, until in the near distance, perhaps 200m or so away, saw movement in the grasses. 

“Hey, is that a…deer?” i pointed, asking both and no one in particular. 

“Good eye, sure is,” the woman responded. “I’ve been coming to this park for years and never seen a deer here.”

“Me neither. Too many coyotes,” the man added.

This brief human conversation somehow warmed my body, which had stopped shivering uncontrollably, skin plumped and suppled from the absorbed moisture. Rainfall let up too. The woman was the first to venture out, i, second, the others who had gathered next, and only the grey bearded man was left in solitude under dry-ish cover. 

Most runs at tommy thompson park (or is it leslie spit? not sure where one ends and becomes the other) are not like this. On most runs, there are way fewer humans and even more rarely, human-to-human conversation. In fact, if you go in the early morning, especially during the weekdays, there are times when you are the sole human so far as the eyes can see and the ears can hear, isolated to the point of convincing yourself that you are no longer in the GTA but stranded on a tropical island. On those days, the birds reign supreme, and omigod, what variety! Every single individual of each species has such a strong personality. And you get to know them not by some stupidass, multisyllabic latin scientific name, but by their colours, size, movements, sounds, bold-/shyness, and levels of curiosity. They are each my favourites for different reasons. Those black birds with red wings, they make me laugh so hard, and they are bold as fuck. Instead of landing on solid tree branches, they opt to aim for the reeds and skinny cattails. Their descent is swift, and because of their belly weight, they slide down to midpoints on the plant stalks, whilst whistling, “wheeeeeeee…?” like a question mark. It’s as though they fly around just for the joy of landing. What if we humans too arrived with such a sweeping flourish, sliding into formation? And, wah, so demanding! If you don’t stop to greet these birds, they will jump onto your head and just hang out for awhile until you have a proper tête-à-tête, truly! They’re like, “Hey ayu! you haven’t greeted me yet. Am right here! Where’s our morning convo??”

Other birds are much more shy. I think there may be around four or five different varieties of small yellow songbirds in the park. Some are bright lemony yellow, some are softer, mixed with greys, black, or early summer greens, while others are gentle shades of cornsilk. All approximately the same size, slightly smaller than sparrows, they are wondrously timid. When i first started running in the park, they would frantically fly away from the sounds of incoming footfalls hundreds of metres away. And, god, can they camouflage. They will find that one leaf that has prematurely turned and freeze like they have been asked to stand very still as in those late 1800s camera shoots, with the moustached photographer cloaked behind the curtain, awaiting the bigass flash. But as these birds become more accustomed to the human and reassured that said human will not go all angry ape on them and crash into their secret hideaways, they start off by prancing between the branches, still hidden, mind you, but inviting one to witness a flutter of movement. Over time, and in response to an equally timid human approach, when one makes the right cheepy whistle, they will zoom by, fly-bys becoming increasingly closer with trust and familiarity, until finally, they come in so close that the wind from their tiny wingspan tickles the skin. You will know that you are building toward solid relationships with these delicate creatures when they begin gathering in the trees and bushes right ahead of you in anticipation of your run-bys. When they perch, they land facing away, skip hop around in one go to face you, then begin to sing the most beautiful wobbly tune that adds extra jump to every human step. They are the bird version of a babbling brook.

Errrmmmmm, okay, will let you in on a secret. Should i…or shouldn’t i? Hell, okay so the secret squirrels swan oasis is at tommy thompson/leslie spit. Won’t tell you exactly where, you will have to find out for yourself. And their locations change seasonally, btw. Have never seen so many swans gather in one location. Oh, and the other day, witnessed the most bizarre swan interlude ever. Up not too high in the sky, two were impatiently rushing for the summer oasis. They were perhaps one swan width apart, the one tailing the other. Suddenly, the one flying in the back tugged really hard on the tail of the one in front with its beak, like some weirdass in-flight relay race, and they switched places! Is this the origin of human relay races? Did some hunter see this way back when and thought, ‘hey, I have an idea, why don’t we pass batons while running around a ring?’ Probably forgot about the bird inspiration completely. Stupid human. 

God, can go on and on about the curious shyness of robins, how they prance diagonally ahead of you, but will not fly away. Head slightly tilted, they keep looking over their shoulder (do they even have shoulders??) for a sidelong glance, if you give them a wide enough berth and walk quietly alongside. They prefer tip-toeing to regular human footsteps. And those mini-sized scrappy crow-ish black-brown birds, the ones that look like they are wearing an ill-fitting, wrong-coloured toupee. Imagine that at some point in their evolution, maybe there was like a fire, and the tops of the heads of those birds burned off. Shocked by the nakedness and exposure of skin, one of them said, ‘no really, just try this on. It’s pretty much the same as your feathers.’ The other one regarded the auburn tuft skeptically, but thought, ‘what the hell, anything better than being featherless up top,’ and threw the makeshift feather hat onto its head with its beak. ‘Hey, you look great, nearly the same colour. Let me try…’ Ermmm, wait a sec, silly anthropocentric ayu, birds see a much broader spectrum of colour than humans so when the first bird tried on the new gear, it was like a disco ball party time, the feathers anchored joyously into its scalp, and generations upon generations of toupee birds were born. The end. Not a true story, so please do not quote me, am a compendium of misinformation and imagined facts.

Another favourite are starlings, at least think they’re starlings. They look like triangular fighter jets and have super pointy wingtips. The way they swoop, gliding over ponds and lakes, occasionally skimming the surface, perhaps clawing for grubs?, impresses the fuck out of me. They lunge so high up toward the heavens then just as swiftly make their acrobatic descent. I often clap and cheer them on, it’s so exhilarating to witness their glee. For the longest time, thought they only swooped like that above water, until began running tommy thompson/leslie spit. Just a few hundred metres past the stoplights, beyond the new information/toilet area, you will come across the first set of trees that reach toward one another on the pathway, so as to create a future arch. Well, the starlings love, love, love that strip, they totally hang out there and swoop high and swoop low, in all directions all at once, mesmerizing passersby. It’s as though they are casting a spell, allowing entry through a secret passageway into another realm. Once you pass this gateway, the other birds begin to greet you.

Yes, the different birds are all my favourites for different reasons, but they do have habits in common, regardless of species. These are the signs of their developing trust in non-birds: the intimate fly-by; the diamond beaking (fyi, diamond beak is when the birds sharpen their beaks on a branch like a chef sharpening a chopping knife, once again not official ornithological lingo, but feel free to quote ayu on this); grooming their feathers meticulously from the breast to the wingtip; arriving at their regular perch for a proper conversation. They will also start flirting with you, if you impress them with your own birdsong. How can you tell they are attempting to woo you? Well, much like pigeons interlocked in a mating dance, all of these birds have their own version of spreading out their tail feathers, puffing out their breast and wings, skipping provocatively, and weaving closer in then further away until they have enchanted you with their performance. Love love love.

At tommy thompson/leslie spit, these birds fly at different velocities and heights of the troposphere. The yellow birds tend to stay lower to the ground in order to reach the safety of bushes. The robins start off low then flap powerfully to settle on the tops of poplars, their favourite spots from which they sing their newest compositions. Swans fly in V-shapes sort of one layer up from the brown-black toupee birds…actually, no, the toupee birds also stay fairly low to the ground, and the swans are perhaps 10 swan lengths above them. And those goddamn fighter pilot starlings cut through every single layer of the troposphere, weeeeeeeee-ing and swishing all the way. There are so many other birds, too numerous to mention, would have to write whole books just to describe them all, but must say this: because of the range, style of flight, and acrobatics, your neck keeps craning up toward the sky. You see, this is part of the spell that your friendly neighbourhood birds cast on you. On a particularly climatically balanced day, when the humidity and temperature reach equipoise, the line between lake and sky completely disappears, and no matter how much you blink, your brain registers the whole island as floating toward the stratosphere. The birds, they know this, and they fly even more furiously, creating a maddening swirl of kinetic energy so much so that the whole ground starts to rattle, mammals scatter, and still they swoosh with all their might, their collective wing power propelling the land mass ever upwards until it completely breaks free from the lake’s imprisonment. The birdsongs begin to sound like human words, “jump jump ayu, jump! jump jump ayu, jump! jump, Jump, Jump!!” until completely caught up in the moment, i take that first tentative leap, and swear to gods, the body is released from gravity’s stranglehold, and for every step that makes contact with the ground, three or four more walk the air, each step bouncier than the one prior. Then woooooooooooosh, the land spins far below me. It’s so fucking 天気の子//Weathering with You, Grand Escape by Radwimps, feat. Miura Toko (AMV, in particular), but surrounded by birds and birdsongs rather than water droplets. Since ayu is still a flight trainee and easily overwhelmed, the birds begin to lower the island after a short while, and my legs start to feel the tug of the approaching ground, itching to replant on firm earth. All this right before the other humans arrive, the birds whistle casually as if nothing special has just taken place. And no human is the wiser, haha. Do believe though that were you to build trust with these birds, they will teach you to fly as well. They are patient teachers. Word of advice: be sure to look down from time to time, especially after major rains, as this triggers the great snail migration, who take up the opportunity to glide more freely across the newly slicked pavement. To them, we are bipedal tornado monsters, crushing both heart and home in one devastating blow. On a day of carelessly stomping on five snails, this bipedal tornado monster cried all the way home, for real. Since then, have only stepped on one of those darlings.

I have a special voice, volume, love-murmur-coo, and gait around each animal and plant living in tommy thompson/leslie spit, unique to every single encounter. My lips, arms, legs, torso shift and change up based upon the interaction. For instance, no way in hell would i dare smile with my teeth showing in the company of the resident bunbuns. Those rabbits would think some predator is baring their bloodthirsty teeth at them, so instead, have this super-weird tight-lippy gummy smile, as if one’s dentures have been removed. Probably creepy as fuck were a human to see it. Bunbuns are calmed by this facial expression though, whereas the birds do not shy away from an open-mouthed laugh or toothy grin. Actually, they probably pity the featherless, wingless bird in front of them, ‘poor thing is trying to tell us something but where the hell is its beak?’ so they gather around in show of moral support. They are so patient with the it before them.

In fact, one of my preferred gender pronouns is ‘it’, but no human ever calls me that, even as they treat me like an it. It is in the way. It is walking too slowly. It is obstructing my view. It is speaking strangely. It isn’t following my orders. It is not what I wanted after all. In human company, the itness is painfully felt on the daily, dehumanizing. In the company of nonhumans, the experience of itness proliferates. Ayu is a different it in relation to a squirrel, mongoose, butterfly, dandelion, cormorant, wild geese, snake, brown-eyed susans, aphid, turtle, cloud, poplar, spruce, a blade of grass, wire fencing, sparrow, dung beetle, ant, crow, magpie, spiders, pond, robin, deer, seagulls, dog, cat, mice, rats, swans, coyote, pebbles, beaver, river, ice floes, broken glass, lady bug, blue jay, snails, monarchs, rose bushes, cardinals, wind gusts, and so on, and so on…And there are reams of research articles supporting the idea that there is a direct causal relationship between biodiversity and linguistic diversity (just search “linguistic and biodiversity” and lots of primary research papers pop up). Feel this, makes total sense, right? The more beings that exist in the world, the more words are necessary to try to catch up.

Did you know that in the japanese language, there are over 30 ways to say I, 30+ ways to say we, 20+ ways to say you, multitudinous ways to say he, she, they, it…Pronoun use is context and relationship specific where honourifics, proximities and gender play a big role. Yet despite being spoiled for pronomic choice, japanese is considered a pro-drop language. This means that unless necessary, one doesn’t fixate so much on the subject of the sentence as on the idea or state of affairs being communicated. Pronouns are only used when someone else has been introduced, the social context has shifted, or an idea reframes the current relations. Khmer equally yet differently has a complex pronominal system, while some languages such as Farsi and Vietnamese do not have gendered pronouns at all. There is actually much more in common between languages that have multiple and zero gendered pronouns than the english language, which has been whittled down to one for each category. He, she, they - these pronouns become nomic, a title rather than a relation, an immovable subject position. So here is ayu, calling out for linguistic decolonisation of gender pronouns from the tyranny of english now, yaho! There are over 7000 human languages currently spoken on earth. Can you imagine how the world would open up with the proliferation, interplay, and dropping of all the pronouns amassed from said languages? Like some kind of bewildering linguistic juggling act of relations. And the planet would thank us muchly. Let’s not become the fucking soybean production of gender and ungendered pronouns. Stop pronomic monoculturalism now before it’s too late! 

In all seriousness, truly believe that the propagation of so many itnesses makes ayu into a better human for humans and nonhumans alike. Confined strictly to human company, i would become seriously 捻くれ, spiritually bent out of shape and terribly misanthropic. But the other states of itness teach how to encounter humans more expansively, with a wider heart and relational imagination. ‘It’ then is not merely a degrading pronoun but exists above and beyond what humans convince ourselves to be. What if someone is at first timid, like one of those yellow songbirds? Then my approach must be more tentative, careful, a reassuring gait and introduction. What if a baby seagull is injured and hungry? Then, having witnessed adults tending to their young, ayu must chirp and tiptoe towards, provide quiet shelter, and regurgitate healthy food for its healing process. 楮ー和紙 (kōzo-washi) relations too demonstrate how to shapeshift living possibilities into living dreams.

Even still, regardless of the breadth of these linguistic possibilities, words may continue to fail us. 

I didn’t know

didn’t know

didn’t know

until breaking away from the cloister of the Linnaeus system of species classification

that

coyote howls

hollows out 

heart beating

tempo beckons brave monarchs

…Yo, Juka, pong!, back to you, friend…