I’m more of a bird watcher than a bird feeder.

I thought about buying a bird feeder in my backyard but I know mom won’t approve. She doesn’t like birds or animals or anything related to nature.

Anyway, this was me last year, watching creepily from my kitchen with my 70-300 mm lens to see what my birdie friends were up to in my backyard. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to do that this year because when I re-did the backyard last fall, the bird house had to go, especially because I kept finding baby bird corpses in there. It’s a scary thing to find in one’s backyard.

Yesterday, after getting into a fight with my mom again – she called me selfish for not paying more attention to her – I decided to take what mom called “the coward’s way” out. I let mom be alone in my house and I went for a drive. My number one destination was the mountains. It’s where I go when I feel like I’m about to go into a full-blown emotional meltdown.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t do much when I reached my destination. The trail was covered in a thick layer of snow and ice and something told me if I value my life and want to protect my camera, I should go somewhere else. So I did.

It was feeding day at the park. Groups of people brought bags of feeds for the park’s residents – mallards, geese, ducks, and even squirrels. It was a spectacle, watching the variety of birds go crazy for food while the spectators smiled and said, “there’s no need to fight, there’s plenty.”

I stood there, watching birds fly in the sky and ducks and geese enjoying their meals by the creek, I was prolonging the inevitable. I didn’t want to face reality.

Mom listed out a bunch of faults that morning – I was selfish, unapologetic, dirty, messy, irresponsible – simply because I accidentally spilled a few drops of water on the kitchen counter and I didn’t give her the answer she wanted to hear about her shingles the night before. I told her if she can’t stand living with me, she should move out and she replied, “you must repay your debt first.”

As I leaned against the tree, staring into the distance, I thought, there’s no way I would be able to repay that sum of money. How in the world will I ever get out from beneath her thumb?

A resolute voice replied, “I guess you won’t. You can’t. There’s no way. I guess you just have to make the best of it.”

Sunday Stills