My friend Karen called asking if I would release a hummingbird. Seems it was migrating and slammed into a building. It’s unusual. The popular New York City bird is pigeon.
I went over to Animal General to pick it up. There in a cage of Plexiglas a tiny tidbit was fluttering with all its might against the sides to get out. Karen, who's a vet technician, said if it was going to live it had to be released.
She gave it one last meal through a cylinder tube that it drank from. She then put it in a golden paper bag, stapled the top, handed me a map to the Shakespeare garden.
“Go!”
I made my way, hummingbird in bag, to 81rst Street. Central Park was in view. I waited at the light at the beautiful Beresford apartment house where I lived with my second husband. I walked up near the Delacorte Theatre, where I had performed years ago for Joe Papp and Twyla Tharp. I found a sign saying “The Shakespeare Garden.” The garden was like the grounds of the Shakespearean Theatre in Ashland Oregon where I had played Juliet. This morning was a trip down memory lane.
There was a young nice-looking fellow sitting on one of the benches.
I double-checked: “Is this the Shakespeare Garden?”
“Yes, right you are.”
“I have a hummingbird here that I'm releasing.”
Curious, the young man came over. I opened the top of the stapled bag and set it on its side. Together we watched the hummingbird swoop out of its paper prison onto the fence post.
“It's looking all around trying to get its bearings.”
“Yes, but its happier now,” I said.
There were flowers there for it to feed on. But where would it go once it was out of the protective garden? A concrete forest of skyscrapers loomed in the distance.
“Look! It's flown off.” The fellow said.
“Yes. I hope it finds some friends. It's all alone.”
“That was beautiful. Thank you.”
“Do you work here?” I asked
“I work for the city. This is my day off.”
“Oh you get good retirement benefits then.”
“I get health insurance, which a lot of people don't have.”
There was a suspended moment. I was twice his age.
“Well I must be going,” I said.
“Yes, thank you again.”
I made my way towards home. He turned in the opposite direction.
I was like that hummingbird almost forty years ago, I thought. Desperate to get out of the suburbs - yearning to get to New York - sensitive and fragile and not a clue as to how to make a life here.
I only had my talent and a dream - flowers of sustenance.