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epitome of incomprehensibility
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"Somehow, I have noticed the birds more than before. Cardinals, finches, hummingbirds, blue jays. Alison put up some feeders. The birds come regularly. Their movements are nervous. They have always been. But I see that nervousness now more emphatically."
-Ilan Stavans, from https://lithub.com/three-authors-leave-stay-dream-and-long-for-elsewhere/
The interview's a bit all over the place, but maybe that's the point. It's generally focused on three writers' reactions to the pandemic.
The bird part resonates: I also remember seeing a lot of them in the spring. My guess was that the planes keep them further away, normally (I live close to an airport), but there were more of them recently because air traffic was greatly reduced this spring/summer.
But maybe I noticed them more because I was around more during the day.
It was exciting to see a pileated woodpecker not too far from my parents' house (I usually just see the black-and-white striped kind here; the pileated ones, which have a red crest, I'd only seen in rural areas).
And I found the birds calming in a silver-lining sort of way, nature taking back its place after the mechanical birds have been stilled. Like the story of the emperor and the nightingale.
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