On Loving Birds

Kulsoom Ijaz volunteers with the Wild Bird Fund in New York City, both as labor of love and a practice of gratitude, washing bowls and cleaning enclosures for the avian residents. In this, her debut essay for Guernica Magazine, she recounts what birds have to teach us about adversity as she remembers how their beauty and their songs lifted her spirits during a lengthy illness.

And if I were to stop hiding behind trivia, I would tell you that I love birds because they saved me too. On one of the hottest days of the pandemic in 2020, I spent a couple of hours walking the misty marshes of Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, immersed in birdsong. Then I came home and slept for three days, waking only for a few hours, my mind awash with fog. Drifting in and out of consciousness, my vision blurry, I stumbled through the hallways of my apartment, my hands and shoulders hitting the walls to keep me from falling, drank cups of coffee to no avail. That spell of severe sun fatigue—a hallmark symptom of lupus—finally led to my getting a diagnosis after years of bouncing around from specialist to specialist, trying to piece together what was wrong with me. But I got worse before I got better. Bedridden, I waited months for the Plaquenil to build up in my body so I could get my life back. From the corner of my room, lonely and afraid, I watched birds perch on the branches that brushed my window. Sometimes, they featured as shadows on the drawn curtains that shielded me from the sun. Days passed like that. I listened and watched as their silhouettes shifted throughout the day—mourning doves, blue jays, and cardinals quieting my heart.