Blackbirds

            They are complex characters.

             I guess I'm really pushing the envelope when all I have to blog about is birds.  But, I hold a grudge against a whole flock of blackbirds.  I just washed off the driveway where they congregated in one big group poop.  Those birds have no dignity! 

            They bombed my car a couple weeks ago.  Little terrorists with feathers.

            When my husband and I went to Jamaica, we took a nature tour around the resort where we stayed.  The guide/maintenance boy pointed out all sorts of plants naming their botanical names.  Then he told us their Island names.  I wish I could remember some the exotic Island names for things I recognized like yarrow or mother-in-law tongues.   The Jamaicans have a different sort of name for almost everything.  But luckily, I remember the Island name for a blackbird. 

            “See that black bird up there in the tree?” The guide said.   He pointed to a lone scout clucking and whistling to its buddies in other trees. 

            I wonder what they call it here, I thought, getting primed to go home and tell everybody.

            “We call that bird a Black Bird,” said the Jamaican with a big smile.   

            Black Birds turn into jazz musicians in the Caribbean.  Some of their songs sound like the plop of water drops and the chatter of porpoises.  On dayshift, they play their fluty music and then just give it up to the crocking frog performers when the sun goes down.  I love shimmery iridescent blackbirds down near the equator.  Up here in Middle Tennessee, not so much.

            I have Native American blood in me; that may be the reason I want to know what animal totems mean.  Blackbirds are in my yard nearly year round; surely their presence means something.  So I Google them.  Blackbirds bring creativity, intuition and a grounding connection with self.  How cool is that?  They are full of fertile shit!

            I want characters in my book to be like blackbirds, multifaceted.  They are shitty, beautiful, mob-like radicals with laid-back music skills.   I hate them.  I love them.  I need them.  That’s what creating a complex character is like, living with blackbirds.  

Happy writing,

Karen