Hope is The Thing with Feathers

That’s the line I keep thinking of, while looking out my window from our comfortable exile here on the square in Kelso. I think of the line quite literally, as I get to know life in the Borders of Scotland a bit better through the window: the big, oily, scruffy crows talking on the neighboring roof (who look as though they could have stumbled out of the aptly named Black Swan pub), the wee blue tit that lands on the bird feeder, the stately jays, the cartoonish pheasants that I often see in colorful, bold sprints across the road.

So hope imbues these feathered images, taking wing, taking over the streets once teeming with humanity, it seems these creatures (and their fellow fauna: hares, weasels, deer, and badgers) have become emboldened in our absence, straying farther from their nests and burrows, reclaiming what was once theirs, with liberation. It makes sense that Emily Dickinson gave hope wings during her own isolation.  

Hope is the thing with feathers, I think, it perches in the soul, as I look through the window of the fly-fishing shop, the flies with such whimsical names, it appears that Lewis Carroll was enlisted at Orvis: the wooly bugger, the parachute Adams, the bunny leech. The sound of my laughter echoing against the red sandstone buildings on an empty street, eerily, buoys me with hope.  

And plenty else does: discovering the names of Sir Walter Scott’s relatives in the abbey cemetery, after beginning an old book by him; the hand-written notes in the closed shop-fronts, telling us to please come back when they reopen, that they encourage us to be safe and take heart; Andrew showing me the stinging nettle and wild garlic on our walks, which we pick and take home and wilt in cream and eat over warm potatoes; the lovely town square, near-abandoned, with a little ragtag gathering of masked townspeople, standing meters away, chatting about the warm weather, their words and lilting accents floating up to the window.

We were only supposed to be in Scotland for a brief holiday, to visit family preceding what would have been the week of our wedding. The world had other plans, of course, and we’re now approaching week six living out of small suitcases in our flat in Scotland. I was surprised to find how at home I feel here. It reminds me of Tennessee, and as beautiful as Swiss French is, it’s comforting to hear English and be understood (though I speak “American”). I am charmed by Kelso, even this ghostly version of it.

I sent a New Yorker friend of mine a photo of the empty square with its handsome clock tower, and he replied, “Looks like the type of place they burn witches.”

“Not yet!” I wrote, thinking that I’m likely the witchiest thing around here, if only because I shop at the at the health food store advertising CBD oil, and I like black nail polish. But the folks in Kelso mostly don’t seem like the torch-carrying types. They strike me much like the folks in my other favorite small towns in the States: big-hearted, awkward navigating our new rules and masks, and allowing humor to rub the rough edges off of our collective fear.

I notice that, at the grocery store, more of us say “excuse me,” “thank you,” and “I’m sorry” as we give each other a generous berth. We chatter about the letter that arrived in all of our boxes from 10 Downing Street, urging us to stay home, about the long lines at the pharmacy, the unseasonably sunny weather. People recognize me as an outsider, raising an eyebrow at my accent, and ask if I “stay around here,” and their friendly curiosity makes me feel like I am important, despite the fact that I’m not making any money, and I’ve been wearing the same jeans for over a month.

We watch an Easter service on the laptop, reminding us of the power of metaphorical resurrection. I read a long, smart essay that makes me question the limitations of my own ambition, as it explores all the hypothetical roads the world might take after this. Be vigilant, I read. Prepare to be gaslit by the government. I feel desperate hoping that the fish continue to live in the canals in Venice, the air above L.A. stays clear… but maybe the flora and fauna will continue to spring forth in southern Scotland as though we humans are an afterthought.

Andrew is more restless than I, and I imagine “staying home,” an ideal state to me, is much more challenging for him. As he has been chairing conferences and conducting meetings remotely, he has been wearing the same jeans too. He ordered a blue dress shirt and a tie and little rocket cufflinks to look professional on top, and his paint-stained jeans are just out of the picture. He whistles as he closes his laptop and paints the window sills and varnishes the tables and polishes the door knobs, and it fills the place with a sort of auditory light.

I don’t believe that Maya Angelou had in mind a white, British man when she wrote of a caged bird singing, but I think of her poetry, too, as I notice that he’s whistling at least twice as much since being confined to the flat. He whistles his way in and out of rooms, with a paintbrush or wrench or hammer or rag in his hand, as he puts on the tea kettle or opens a bottle of wine. I notice his beard is coming in too, white and red and fluffy, with wisps framing his face as he flutters from window to chair, book to bed, perch to perch.

Hope is the thing with feathers.