We disappear.
It’s easy when you’re part of the crowd. When you’re one of many – oh so many – then sometimes you feel less than one. You’re statistic, a decimal point. A rounding error. How terrifying.
I remember when we were looking for fur seals at Waipapa Point, just along the shore below the lighthouse. (It was a day of poles, points and posts.) The gales were furious but the sky was brilliant and clear. Past the beach scruff, down to the gravelly sand. No fur seals.
Instead we stumble upon a cotillion of terns, their black caps in stark contrast to the rest of their snowy white plumage. One of many, yet every one contributes to the whole, to the beauty of the many, to balance of the cotillion.
Why do groups of birds have such unusual names? A chime of wrens, a lamentation of swans, a quarrel of sparrows. A bouquet of pheasants.
A pandemonium of parrots, now that one is well named.
Who comes up with all of these labels? Why are terns en masse named after an eighteenth century French country dance? Who knows? It’s beautiful and odd and lovely.
We disappear and we find ourselves, full of meaning and worth. We are one of many and we matter.