a theory of dodo birds

Hello,

I think dodo birds are a good reflection of how we shape anecdotes in our lives.

The dodo bird was native to the island of Mauritius. It lumbered through the verdant foliage of the island, feeding on fallen fruit, nuts, bulbs, and roots. A flightless bird, it was described as big yet in appearance quite similar to the young of robins or pigeons, which were more familiar to Europeans. We don’t actually have any pictures of dodo birds or a detailed ecological study of them. They were made extinct before that technology or field became popular. Instead, we have relied upon the dubious drawings and accounts of various Europeans who might’ve either seen a real dodo or happened upon the specimen of one in a museum.

The name ‘dodo’ could reasonably be derived from Dutch or Portuguese, but that doesn’t really matter. Whatever language or etymology you check, the dodo bird was named for being either fat, slow, or stupid. Like most animals that evolved in isolation without significant predators, they were entirely fearless of humans, and so the narrative was born. Dodo birds were easy prey, too easy. They were wholly unprepared for the nature of European explorers desperate for a hunting trophy or their next meal.

Popular culture has painted the dodo bird as a creature simply too stupid to have survived. This depiction, at its core, is a narrative to absolve humans from the callous harm and destruction we wrought. My theory of dodo birds is about the soothing stories we tell ourselves to make it easier to live with what we do.

Sometimes, when I am the recipient of both sides of a story, I’ve been struck by how much they differ. I’m not calling anyone a liar, in the sense that I think we may all be liars. We remember the things that hurt us but are quick to forget the ways we may have hurt others. “Memory is a novelist, it saturates the data with its own toxins.” The same story told by two or more people emphasizes different beats, internalizes different hurts, extrapolates different interpretations. A lot of times, neither story is wrong. They’re just different by virtue of reflecting different lived experiences. We rationalize our actions in the aftermath, and we reshape it with every remembrance and every retelling until it becomes our reality. We tell dodo stories.

It bothers me to think that there are people out there who can downplay how they’ve affected me, but I know I do the same thing. When I really press myself on it, there are probably (on the low end of the estimate) a half a dozen stories that I tell in ways that obscure how messily I behaved or how badly. Beyond that, there are infinitely more stories that I tell a slightly altered version of to minimize my embarrassment about how deeply something mattered to me. “In the dream I don’t tell anyone, you put your head in my lap.” It’s so easy to rearrange the happenings of a story after it’s over. I do it for audiences of all ages, and I do it for myself, and I’d like to think that you do to.

A Theory of Birds by Zaina Alsous

Back when I was 20 and I think I maybe led a more interesting life, I was invited to a poetry reading for this book. Alsous was the one who first explained this faulty dodo narrative to me. A Palestinian-American and staunch abolitionist, her theory of birds deals more with colonial and immigrant narratives, and how if you tell the right story, violence can be justified. This is one of two poetry chap books that helped me reconsider the ways through which contemporary poetry can affect me.

What stories do you tell yourself about the happenings of your life? Do you hide that you hooked up with someone that you shouldn’t have? Do you lie about being more or less drunk to justify getting into a fight at a party? What are you most embarrassed about?

As always, I hope the universe remembers to treat you with gentle hands,
Jessie