I don’t like turkey, especially not when it is live, wild and ugly! Oh boy, what is it doing this morning outside our yoga studio in the middle of Harvard Square!
It was 8 a.m. Our Vinyasa Flow class was just over. I felt calm, centered and blissful ready to face the day. To avoid getting a parking ticket at 8:05 a.m. (which has happened twice in two years), I dashed out to the sidewalk, and had to STOP. What did I see but one big live, wild and ugly turkey! Standing still next to the driver’s seat of my car, it was staring straight into my eyes as if daring me to kill it or fight it! I may be dramatizing a bit here, but it wouldn’t move. It’s not human. It’s not like I could say to it “excuse me, please move over.” It was a very ugly turkey – half my height, small head, big eyes, dangling skin under its chin, super-skinny legs supporting a ballooned belly as if loaded with a nine-month-old inside! Then those feathers – multi-colored and multi-layered – black, brown, gold of all shades. The longer I stared at it, the more upset I felt.
What to do?
I said to myself “Enough of this stupid nonsense. It won’t move. I will.” I kept my eyes on the turkey, scared that it would run after me, while gently sprinting to the front seat passenger side of the car to unload my stuff. The moment I moved away, the turkey calmly proceeded straight ahead. The next thing I knew, more turkeys came out of nowhere to follow its footstep! Whoa! Strangely, when the whole family of turkey came out, I was less scared. They were a family. They were on a morning walk down Massachusetts Avenue towards Harvard Square. But I was still a bit concerned they would turn back and run after me. I know this is an irrational fear. When does that ever happen? Probably never. But this is what has happened that I have witnessed. A turkey pecking at the tire of a parked car! Who knows why, but I didn’t want that to happen to my car. I had no idea what would trigger the turkey’s fancy of a car tire. But I decided to speed up and move my car to another spot just in case they head back to my car!
All this may sound really silly to you. I’ve told this story to my husband, my yoga studio receptionist, and a few other friends. Everyone looks at me as if I were from Mars. And that is the heart of the problem. I am kind of from another world.
Having grown up and worked in big, crowded and cosmopolitan cities like New York and Hong Kong for most of my life, I am familiar with lots of people and all kinds of traffic. But not wildlife traffic. Since moving to a small college town like Cambridge for the past five years, I have been travelling with my husband all over New England, visiting Maine,
New Hampshire, and nearby historic sites like the Walden Pond
indulging my senses feasting on nature’s beauty – majestic mountains, towering trees, tiny brooks and winding rivers. I have become a bird watcher, flowers lover, and even squirrel and bunny chasers. But, turkey!? As I think back on that day of close encounter with the turkey and its family,
I realize that my reaction is a product of my underexposure to the wild. What I call ugly is what most people around here call natural. Nature is a breeding ground and habitat for all living creatures, good, bad and ugly. And if I am becoming a nature lover, it’s crucial that I cultivate a curiosity about these creatures, their lifestyle, and their relationship with humans.
My husband says to me, “You just need to visit the zoo more!” He may be right. But the zoo is where animals live in a controlled environment, and I see them in that context with no fear. It is when animals leave their cage that I feel fear. And perhaps that is the root of my problem.
Livestock that are raised in agricultural settings like chicken and turkey leap out of their breeding ground startle me because I see that as out of bounds. I found myself saying – you are turkey, why are you in my world!?
But perhaps that turkey behavior accidentally serves as an invitation for me to come out of my shell, and open my eyes to all that is part of nature, and a part of us. Although I don’t eat poultry, it feeds on what human provide and cultivate. I am beginning to pay more attention to the interconnectedness of all creatures – still or moving, human or the wild. When I stop seeing myself as separate from but a part of nature in all its forms, peace overtakes fear.