Flight lessons at Muriwai

of gannets and writing

“We show the world before we’re ready for their reaction, and like a negative prematurely exposed to the light, our ideas and confidence can fade away in front of our eyes.

And then the writer gives up or gets blocked and doesn’t know why.

The biggest mistake writers make is not knowing which stage of the writing process they’re in. We show work to others before it’s ready, we hoard work that is ready, afraid of rejection.” Nancy Stohlman, Going Short

The stench of guano hits me like a wall. If it were a sound, it’d be louder than the rumble of the ocean hurling its waves against the black foreheads of the rocks. If it were a cloud, it’d be higher than the wind that gusts to brush my face, then—mercifully—allows me to get over the smell and the noise.

The air is so dense with salt I lick it off my lips. Yet I hurry to see them—the gannets. Or at least the ones that are still here, the juveniles—not fledglings anymore and not adults either.

Modestly clad in their salt-and-pepper plumage, waiting and growing up. Or growing up and waiting to trust their wings, so they can follow the others. Two thousand kilometres of ocean to fly over, with no land to land on and no food to weigh them down while they take off again.

The heat sways the air. Open-beaked, they sit clumsily on the rocks, close to the nests their parents have left—empty nesters in reverse. Idle, staring ahead at the nothingness, or maybe eyeing with envy the other young gannets that have already changed into pearly-white, yellow-crowned, and blue-eyed beauties.

Suddenly—a gust of wind. And one by one, they perk up and throw their wings wide open, flapping, flapping frantically, feeling the strength flowing into each and every feather, into their bodies all the way to their DNA helix that knows what it’s like to fly. To the brink that reads magnetic fields. To the knot that is brave and reckless enough to lead them on a journey they might not survive.

Yet—here they are. Practicing flight. Learning by doing and trusting in themselves. Until the day when they are ready. No one will tell them; the knowledge will appear and power them up with strength they’ve never felt before. Until then, flap and grow.

I’m here too. To learn from them. And to think about how to wait until I’m ready. Because if I brave the ocean before I’ve learned all that I need to, I’ll surely drown. It’s too vast, too deep-blue out there. And unknowingly cold.

Three birds, right before me, are flapping so frantically I feel the airwaves of their wings, hear their feathers slicing the air.

Maybe what they’re doing is not learning how to fly. Of course they know how to—they’re birds.

What they’re learning is how to wait.