A Letter to the Crooked Winged Crow of Swiss Avenue

October 2019

To the Crooked Winged Crow of Swiss Avenue,

Hello! You have probably never really noticed me before, never afforded me any more attention than the allotted amount for anything that approaches you. But I have seen you.

I recall that first fateful day in June when we “met.” I had just recently moved into my new apartment. Separation from my soon-to-be-ex-husband had deposited me into an apartment complex on Gaston Avenue, the street parallel to yours. Restlessness drove me to the streets for an aimless stroll. I had just turned onto Swiss Avenue, when you popped out from the hedges nearest me as a screaming black demon! I had shrieked, but only a little.

After that brief moment of panic, I identified you for what you are: a crow. There was something off about you, though. Your sudden exit had not been etched into the air by flapping wings. No, you had run out from under the shrubbery! Hopped, more than ran, actually. I remember thinking how peculiar you looked. Comical! I remember smiling, and tilting my head affectionately towards you. But the moment passed, and I resumed my walk. There was much more to see than some silly crow.

A week later, in the early hours of morning, I again spotted you in the distance: a diligent black dot hopping about. I got closer, as close as I could. You had paused for a moment, assessing my lack of feathers, determining me to be potentially dangerous before you bounced away. I couldn’t help but smile again, even as concern tugged down at the corners of my mouth and began to furrow my brow.

That pause...that pause was just long enough, for me to see it. To really see you, Crooked Winged Crow. After that, I began to look for you on my daily walks.

It is October now. Almost four months have passed. I still look for you.

I look for you, with your one mangled wing, folded over coarsely and carelessly like construction paper, and just as flat, save for the one set of midnight tinted feathers that point up towards the sky as if they were desperately reaching towards something they could never feel, never touch.

I look for you, Crooked Winged Crow.

I look for you as you hop frantically and furiously down Swiss Avenue. I look for you and think how desperately you must wish to join your friends and family in the branches and clouds above. They click and rattle and caw, while you jump around the tree roots below.

I look for you, and I wonder. I wonder what was it that damned you to this lonely street. Was it a predator that tried to destroy you, attempted to rid you of your song, but failed? Was it cruel fate that left you broken in this place with a crooked wing that points halfway up as if Mother Nature herself had once tried to yank you off of the ground and into her arms, but couldn’t? Do you caw out in anguish to her?

Do you eat well? Are you lonely? Are you happy?

I wonder all of these things about you, Crooked Winged Crow.

It may seem odd, but I see myself in you, my avian friend. I feel a little peculiar, a little crooked, myself. I feel as if I have been hopping frantically and furiously around for my entire existence, but especially as of late. Even crazier, perhaps...I find myself wishing I could fly! I imagine flying towards something new, something good, something that is mine. But I feel grounded to this place, a mangled and bent heart holding me down.

My soul yearns for more, wishes better for both of us, but it especially wishes for you. I wish that you would stop evading the residents from the big brown house on the corner. Or that you would accept food from the elderly couple that lives in the white mansion with the green shutters. They have seen you, too. Maybe they can help, if you just let them? I know how hard that is, though: to trust.

I wish the crooked wing that unjustly keeps you captive would remedy itself. I wish that you could soar above and beyond the tree line, far away from the streets of Swiss Avenue. Your wings were made to make you free, not cage you! Fly, my friend! (I wish I might wave to you as you go.)

I also wish that I might not see you again. I wish that days, and then weeks would pass without spotting you. I wish this, but wish too that if you did disappear, some part of me would be certain that you were safe and thriving. I wish for solace if you go.

I am full of wishes. They abound like shimmering stars in the night sky! I wish, but I also know that mere wishing will not save us. Wishing will not make us fly. Realistically, neither of us may ever fly....

Still, I will continue to look for you, Crooked Winged Crow. I will not stop. Even if you will never fly away from this place, even if I shall forever see you swiftly maneuvering the undersides of garden shrubs, even if you never change, even if nothing changes I still hope in you!

I hope in you, Crooked Winged Crow. To see you bouncing about is proof that you made it one more day. I hope if you can make it, even just one more day, with your mangled and folded-over wing...

...then maybe I can, too.

Thank you for that hope. I shall see you soon.

Your Friend,

Chance (The Crooked Hearted Man of Gaston Avenue)

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Author’s Note: I really did write this letter to a crow that lived on Swiss Avenue. While I had no intention of sealing the letter in an envelope, paying for postage, and sending it out for delivery, I did want to verbalize all of the thoughts and feelings I had towards that plucky little creature. The Crooked Winged Crow was one of the first things I encountered as the dominoes in my life began to topple over in ways I had never anticipated: separation with no hope of reconciliation, being newly single for the first time in five years, a new place by myself, friends choosing sides, friends who were not really friends, difficulty setting boundaries at work for an increasingly hard and underpaid job, two car wrecks in a week, a rescued kitten that infested the whole house with fleas, and gave my dog and I ringworm... I could go on, but I’ll stop there.

At first, I was determined to help the poor thing. I contacted Animal Control, collaborated with neighbors I had seen trying to catch it. I even chased the damn thing in hopes I could just grab it, but they were surprisingly quick, agile, and outsmarted us often. The little sucker was not going to go quietly. Or at all. So it came to be that the Crooked Winged Crow would stay on Swiss Avenue.

Curiosity about “my” crow’s deformity led me to do some light research about crows in general. They are actually incredibly intelligent and social creatures. They even mate for life! Since I rarely saw the Crooked Winged Crow with others, it was easy for me to personify them a bit and imagine that they experiencing similar set-backs in life. The Crooked Winged Crow was “with me,” as I struggled to make sense of my new world.

I don’t like birds. Actually, no. I despise birds. So the fact that I found genuine hope, “friendship” (albeit one-sided), and began to care for something so unlikely and unexpected is one of the most beautiful parts of this whole story.

The Crooked Winged Crow was seldom spotted one day after another. They would disappear for up to a week at a time, sometimes two. But I always looked out for them. As the weather started to get colder, sightings became more sparse. Still, I looked. Towards the end of October and beginning of November, I saw them five or six times. Then in mid-December, only twice. Twice again in January. Three days in February. Then, four days in-a-row in March!

In mid-March 2020, just a few days after the United States was forced into quarantine by COVID-19, I saw my feathered friend for the last time. They were bouncing down the middle of Swiss Avenue, uniquely safe from the danger of oncoming automobiles, thanks to a global pandemic. I never saw them again.

But I imagine they are finally flying, now.