I love birds. I wish I could fly. My whole life I've had wonderful flying dreams ... strangely, my best flying dreams happened during my darkest days. I think my soul was trying to escape. It was years into adulthood before I discovered that everybody had their own individual methods and techniques of flying in their dreams. Some just jump and soar straight away. Some have to jump off things to do it. Every time I told people my technique, they laugh. I guess it's very - distinctive.
I have to stand perfectly still, and start flapping my arms up and down. Slowly, then faster and faster. Slowly I start rising up, hovering above the ground. And here's the annoying part .... there is ALWAYS someone who wants to pull me down. Always. Sometimes people I know, often people I don't. Just "baddies."
If the baddies don't grab my leg and drag me down, I build up speed and just fly up and away, and can stop flapping and fly so fast, so high.
So. I love birds. I think souls of people can come down and fly around in them for a while. They just seem so mystical and knowing. We get a lot of birds where we live. Dave always wants to feed them, I didn't for a long time. Too scared of bird flu. Did you know that there is ALWAYS something to be scared of? It's exhausting.
Last week I went outside and there was this kookaburra sitting on the new fence that Dave built for our passionfruit vine. (I showed him my vlog a while back, he now loves them just as much as me. But says he *always* has loved them. And looked at me accusingly, like, I had stolen his passionfruit love?! Because, you know, it's a COMPETITION.)
I was feeding the dog some chicken wings, and just chucked one at Mr Kookie. Just to see what he would do.
Years ago at a campsite our friend Rog was cooking bacon on a frypan and a kookaburra swooped down and stole the boiling hot bacon, straight from the pan. Cheeky little bugger.
They carry their food in their strong beaks ... and bash the crap out of it against the ground. Mr Kookie spent AGES killing his chicken wing.
Here I took a shot of me watching the kookaburra. It was supposed to be artistic and inspiring, but I just look tired. At the exact moment I snapped this photo, Max came outside, saw me, sighed, and went back inside without saying a word.
Mr Kookie was VERY busy.
I went back inside for a while, and when I came out I saw this.
At first I thought, COOL. I can feed them all and have my own feathered army. Then they started laughing.
And laughing.
And laughing.
I love birds, but when it comes to kookaburras, I just don't get what's so funny. Shut UP, stupidhead. It feels like they are laughing AT ME. Maybe it's acid paranoia flashbacks, I'm not sure. I went inside, ignoring them all. They all stayed there looking at me for ages. One would peck at the window, try to get my attention. Another would fake-swoop the kitchen, scare the crap out of me. Alfred Hitchcock eat your heart out.
Go away Kookies .... no soup for you.
Finally they all gave up ... except one. He stayed there for two days, in hope. You can see him on the fence, hungrily watching Rocco eat his dinner.
Rocco's all, I don't give a shit how many birds there are. Nobody is getting their dirty beaks into my pizza.
UPDATED TO ADD: Enquiring minds need to know - how do you fly in your dreams?
Haha - all those Kookies waiting for tasty treats and you denied them??? Such taunting cruelty!
ReplyDeleteI fly by zooming. No jumping off anything, just arms back head forward pointing ahead and I'm up up and away. You know when you go to to see the seals and they're all glide-y and swoop-y in the water and they slow and then zoom - that's me flying. Man oh man I wish I could do it for real.
And when I'm dream-swimming underwater, I can breathe the water and I always get a surprise. I take that first big inhalation of water after being desperate for air for so long...and I can breathe it! And it's always, always surprising and fantastic. Then I get to be seal-me swimming.
I wonder why my swimming and flying styles are so similar.
Look Ma, no arms!
I don't fly in my dreams, but I can run really fast on all fours. My arms do most of the work, clawing into the ground for more speed and traction. So strange.
ReplyDeleteDamn girl..you KNOW that first Kook flew back to the Kook compound all "look what I scored bitches", they all follow him back to your place, and now they think he is a liar, cuz you wouldn't give up the goods. He is now the laughing stock of his entire gang.
ReplyDeleteEden,,,I fly like you do, and there is always someone trying to pull me down. I think we need a therapy consultation together. I once had someone tell me that it was me trying to escape my shitty childhood. Wouldn't doubt it for a minute.
Feed one and they all will come...
ReplyDeleteThose are some silly looking birds. I like your bird-watching picture. I think you look great!
I don't fly in my dreams - is that odd? I'm pretty firmly grounded (haha - nice pun there) in reality, so that may have something to do with it.
Why are you feeding the dog chicken wings? I was always told that chicken (and pork) bones were too brittle to feed dogs. They splinter and can cause internal damage. Maybe it had to do with cooked bones? Now, I'm curious...
The last flying dream that I recall, I was gliding ... levitating ... like a ghost. Like roller skating on air. It was very liberating to be up off my feet, never stumbling but moving very, very fast.
ReplyDeleteThe sensation is so real (it's a recurring one), I almost wake up thinking that doing it in real life is simply mind over matter. Like it's a trick we have always been able to do, but forgotten how or that it is possible.
I can't remember the action of that dream, but I do remember writing about it to a friend. It was one of "those" dreams, one of the unusual ones that are just somehow different from the typical ramblings of your recovering, resting brain. Lucid dreaming or something like that.
I'm more of a faller, I runner stuck in tar and a mute screamer in my dreams. I'm hoping one of these days that turns around.
ReplyDeleteWe have Kookaburras at our tiny Outback exhibit at our zoo, where my small one tackled a wallaby once. Good times.
I runner? Is that like an iPad? Maybe they could give me wings with that. Off to write Apple.
ReplyDeleteDo not feed the birds!!! They will continue to multiply at your house, eventually trapping you inside! Wait, then you'll have nothing else to do but blog for us. Never mind, continue feeding the birds.
ReplyDeleteOn a sad note, I have very vivid dreams. I remember my dreams almost every night. The one thing I haven't done in my dreams is fly. How pitiful is that?
Wow, your yard look fantastic, when can I come over?
ReplyDeleteMy flying dreams...usually I have to run and run and run to get a good start. And its always awkward, like I don't want anyone to know I can fly - yet I have to sprint down the street to get going...so I ruin the mystery. Then I hover over the ground low for awhile, nearly colliding into people - flapping and flapping before building up enough momentum to soar up wayyyyy high...over the rooftops. And then I feel great and its wicked cool. But its such a slow start. What do you think THAT means?
OMG I have never seen those birds before!!! They look cute, but scary since they eat flesh.
ReplyDeleteI dont like animals that eat meat.
We had a huge kookie in our back yard yesterday I have never seen such a big one. I love birds too. Once we were on a picnic and a Kookaburra swooped down and stole a hot chip from Max's hand and made his finger bleed. They are cheeky!
ReplyDeleteI don't fly in my dreams I would like to though.
Man, I've never experienced a flying dream...wish I had. I always have those dreams where you are about to fall off of something or tip over in a chair and you jump and wake up so abruptly it ruins the rest of the night. *sigh*
ReplyDeleteIt must be a "guy thing" to make everything a competition. Nick does that to me about tv shows. I've recently started watching The Office and he says to me "I *always* loved that show and never watched it because of you - now all of a sudden you like it? It's *my* show!" hah what a CRACK!
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ReplyDeleteOK am I the only one who thinks it is really wrong to feed a bird... bird??!!??
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ReplyDeleteOK so my flying dreams, they are dark. One I am flying a crashing airliner and my father is in another one ahead of me also crashing and i manage to land in a swimming pool (yeah it was a big pool) and no one is hurt but my father goes off at me for wrecking the plane.
ReplyDeleteThen the other I am flying off a cliff but I hit the ground and splat to bits and am dead. I never wake up before hitting and it hurts!
when i lived in australia, my oldest was 2ish...and we had a rogue kooka at our place...i mean he was a mean, horrible bastard kooka. as in he swiped down and gouged the temple of the woman upstairs as she hung out her wash from her veranda...then...he kept swiping down trying to get my toddler..omfg...there was a great dane on the property who would run him off, but eventually we had to get the 'bird people' to come and trap him. god knows where they took him. i do love their laugh though...i do an excellent rendition of it :) (to my childrens' extreme embarrassment :)
ReplyDeleteWhen I fly in my dreams I am escaping something,, Zombies!! I fly when I am being hunted or chased.But first I have to climb a tree you silly birds zombies cant climb or can they? anyway I climb a tree then I can fly and I fly high above the clouds and stars and I look down and watch people.They can not hurt me way up here.Nothing can hurt me while I am flying
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness I am LOVING everyones dreams. And to those who don't dream of flying .... sending you some wings, STAT.
ReplyDeleteSomeone told me that kookies hanging around are a sign that someone is going to get knocked up. But, you know, that's stupid. We have a lot hanging around our house at the moment which is awesome because they chase off the bastard crows that wake us up in the wee hours.
ReplyDeleteMy flying dreams are of the floaty levitaty variety and it's awesome. I have only ever had a few though, my dreams are usually about dark shit like last night when someone's house was on fire and I couldn't wake them up to get them out. Not very relaxing sleep fodder.
Thank you, thank you for this! I absolutely LOVE kookaburras! If only we had them in the U.S.
ReplyDeleteStill, I had no idea they eat chicken wings!
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When I fly, it is more like swimming in the air. Sometimes I do the backstroke.
ReplyDeleteWe used to sing the Kookaburra song in grade school.
ReplyDeleteAnd now I can't sing that song without thinking of cannibal kookaburras.
That would be a good name for a band.
I don't know if I've ever had any flying dreams. I don't remember any. I love birds too. I talk to them a lot. People probably think I'm crazy when they see me talking to birds but I do it anyway.
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