A few years ago, at a wedding in the countryside near Venice, I met a 20-year-old American girl who had grown up in a part of the United States that, from a New Yorker’s perspective, could be called very, very far away. She was pretty in what I would call an old-fashioned way; she was rather small, and did not have the sharp cheekbones or full lips that are fashionable now, but rather her face reminded me of the dolls that I had when I was little: heart-shaped, with curving cheeks, a rose-bud mouth, and eyes that are the color that I think is called “cornflower blue,” with that mosaic-like pebblyness to the iris seen from up close.
She was quiet at first but once she warmed up to talking she was very pleasantly chatty, and she told me about her family and the property she’d grown up on. At a certain point she listed all of the animals they had, and I wish I could remember all of them. They included more than one horse, a goat, dogs, cats, birds… and I think at some point she had hosted some more exotic species (a monkey)?
Then she asked, “What kinds of animals are there in New York?” (This was prompted in part by her amusement that I got very excited when I spotted a cow). I thought about it and began the list: “Well, there are rats, lots of those, and mice, and squirrels, and cockroaches, and I guess there are some horses for carriage rides and policemen… oh – and there are pigeons, lots and lots of pigeons.”
So now I think of her when I see them (or families of rats crossing the sidewalk). Which means she’s come to mind often lately, as I notice that pigeons seem to congregate en masse around subway stations when it’s cool and cloudy out. Do they have somewhere to go? Or do they just like to hang out where there are a lot of people and overflowing garbage cans?
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