What Shredder — and Emerson — can teach us about patience in a pandemic

Ralph Waldo Emerson famously wrote: “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.”

I don’t think my house cat of old, Shredder, ever read Emerson, but she abided by the principle. Shredder was a patient cat, sitting outside all day, days on end, under a car, watching the magpies. Waiting.

I’m reminded of Shredder’s patience when I hear certain governors say stay-at-home orders aren’t needed. Or armed mobs demanding their states “open up” the country immediately. Or when Fox News pundits say a few additional tens of thousands of dead Americans is a small price to pay for getting our economy going again as soon as possible.

Too bad those birdbrains never met Shredder. Had they, they might be tweeting a different tune.

Magpies are smart birds, tricky, bit of a mean streak. Perched in the acacias that shaded the “tree streets” of Shell Beach, they used to dive-bomb loose dogs and cats, and sometimes kids, forcing them to duck as they walked the streets to and from the beach.

There may have been some avian biological explanation, but they seemed to do it for sport, not food or any other reason we could tell. They were just annoying birds, pretty, but loud and obnoxious. Shredder wanted one, real bad.

They knew Shredder was under the car, waiting for her moment. They didn’t care.

They owned the place, flaunted it, cavalierly flying around the neighborhood, crapping on cars, hassling every house pet that had the misfortune of lining up in their sights. They stole cat food, bathed in dog water bowls then tipped them over, trashed hummingbird feeders, looted garbage cans.

One day one of them got cocky, got too close, apparently thinking the cat would never strike. After all, she’d been camped under that car for weeks, motionless, maybe sleeping. Then, all of Shredder’s waiting, plotting, crouching, haunch wiggling —her patience — paid off.

She pounced. It caused a memorable scene: squawking, shrieking, swarming birds dive-bombed the cat, even went after her under the car, screaming magpie clenched in her teeth. The magpies pecked her so viciously she bled from her head and body.

It was a cacophonous riot, a Hitchcockian “Battle of Morro Avenue.” My Cal Poly roommates and all the neighbors who were home came out to watch. They marveled about it for years.

Shredder never let go. Why would she? She’d waited — patiently — for an eternity, taking Emerson’s lesson to heart. She scored the magpie, but didn’t even eat it. She just left the carcass, the trophy, in the driveway to show the other magpies who really owned the street.

It’s a lesson I try to head today. Patience. But it’s getting pretty difficult.

I’m impatient to get back to work, to see my colleagues from around the world again. I took them for granted, as if they’d always be there, before COVID.

I’m impatient to dive back into the sweaty mosh pit at The Siren, to dance like a drunken fool again, to belt out songs with the tribute Tom Petty and Talking Heads bands at the top of my lungs.

I’m impatient to run the trails of Pismo Preserve again, to soak in the sunset behind the lone oak on the hill, to suffer silently the long, hot uphill climbs and enjoy the cooling breeze of the descents.

I’m impatient to do everything again that I took for granted as part of everyday life.

Patience. We seem to be running out of it. We want to change the channel, turn the page, wake up from this fever dream.

But patient we must be. What choice have we? This isn’t a movie. It’s not a work of fiction.

Shredder adopted the pace of nature and got the magpie. I’ll try to be more like Shredder until this is behind us.

Would that the birdbrains do the same.

Columnist Tom Fulks serves on the San Luis Obispo County Democratic Central Committee.