Keep Calm and Carry On

"The ugliest building on campus. Legend has it that it was built out of solid concrete in order to be bullet proof so as to account for the possibility of future student riots on campus following the riots of the 70's in Isla Vista." -Anonymous, Wikimapia

Kerr Hall is a building located on campus at UC Santa Barbara.  As the quote above suggests—which involved hours of extensive Google research to uncover—it is indeed a peculiar extrusion.  Its walls are comprised of a bizarre conglomerate which effect a scathing facade, a rough exterior that seems to say, "Don't fuck with me."  Whether or not that legend is true, Kerr Hall seems to house all of the oddball labs and services that don't belong in any other building.  When deciding where to put things like a digital media library and passport services, I imagine "just shove it into Kerr" to be the administrative philosophy at work.

If I ever pretended to have any grasp on architectural logic, Kerr Hall smashes it to pieces.  I can't discern where the interiors terminate and the outer flourishes begin.  I guess it's not easy to put windows in concrete, but maybe it's supposed to be a bit labyrinthine.  Overall, it seems to be two buildings of disparate size smashed together and conjoined by various oblong concrete slabs.  And then there are the windowpanes.   

Above the main walkway separating Kerr Hall's two parts you will find an array of glass.  I walk through this building often, but never stopped to notice the glass panels above my head until one day in February.  I was on my way to the digital media library to find a copy of Restrepo for the war-narratives class I was enrolled in.  Upon reaching the second level balcony (which is situated along the main walkway) I noticed a little hummingbird situated near these windows.  It was trapped, trying to fly up and away only to be continually perplexed by the thin barrier between it and freedom.

To be clear, these windows don't separate inside and outside.  They are set at a 45 degree angle as one of the many binding flourishes, making the buildings appear more contiguous despite their differing height.  Perhaps the windows have practical purposes like deflecting rain.  I'm not entirely certain.  On one side of this array, the glass terminates perpendicularly into a solid concrete wall with a peculiar rectangular slot in it.  The slot is much bigger than the arrowslits used as a vantage point for archers defending castles, but it seems to elicit the same kind of feeling.  The other end of the glass simply ends—a subtle wingtip pointing to the void between buildings.

So this isn't the first time I've seen a bird trapped in a building, but for some reason it seemed the most dire.  The little bird just couldn't seem to understand how it came to be there.  It was also quite exhausted.  It seemed that I could almost count the frequency of flapping with my naked eye.  Despite being perched on a sill, the hummingbird attempted again and again to fly up and out.  The adjacent exits were obvious to me, yet something in its nature just doesn't allow it to understand a way to escape.  And I was quite helpless to do anything as the windows are quite out of reach.  I immediately started to think of ways to extend my reach.  Perhaps I would walk by the swimming pool to see if I could borrow some equipment.  Perhaps there's a number on campus to call for this sort of thing.  What about Kerr Hall's administrative staff?  I didn't know where to begin, so I just walked around.  I walked around the pool area but couldn't even find an entrance.  I believe this particular building is only accessible to those on a team, but I never resolved that.  I then went to the library to look up phone numbers, but that proved fruitless.  I just couldn't figure a solution.

I wasn't the first person to notice the hummingbird's struggle.  A woman working in Kerr Hall happened to step out of her office and fill me in on the situation: the bird had been trapped there for at least 20 hours at this point.  She left out sliced fruit and vibrant red decorations to entice the bird away from the windows, but it was too distressed to do anything but persist.

I continued to walk and think about how I could possibly pull something together and help the little creature out.  It was also comforting to know that someone else was doing the same, but to what extent can we go out of our way any time an animal is trapped in a building?  If I stopped to think about all of the organisms I've killed merely by sitting on a patch of grass or driving my car down the highway... well I wouldn't be able to move without inadvertently killing something.  I wouldn't be able to function if I were constantly worried about every single action I performed with my body.  While I value the mindfulness of such an exercise, it is quite debilitating.

For some reason, I still decided that this little bird needed my help, our help.  Perhaps it's the way I value animals and the beauty of nature.  Somehow I've projected innocence, frustration, and struggle on the hummingbird.  I enjoy having these empathetic faculties, but do they betray me?  Even those aesthetics can be reduced to a very selective and often hypocritical process.  Just consider how livestock are treated in this country.  Sure, baby cows are "cute" yet they are raised for our use.  The cow that gets slaughtered is not something we like to think about when we go to the grocery store and meander through the aisles of meat and dairy products.  I even have trouble thinking about how cows might be treated when they produce all of that delicious Greek yogurt I enjoy.  Somehow I've elevated the struggle of this little bird beyond that of the countless animals that are subjected to other types of burden and torment.

Once again, it is quite debilitating to think about.  Even if I evaluate the state of things and make lifestyle changes to affect these cultural values, I am most likely overlooking something else that is equally deserving of my attention.  I tend to ponder over of the type of misanthropic person who elevates the struggle of animals over the struggle of mankind.  Perhaps it is the burden of our consciousness, our awareness, that leads one to think it shouldn't be so easy for us.  Perhaps we shouldn't feel so entitled as to impose on every living thing, occasionally deciding what will be spared based on some arbitrary set of values and glorifying how we're so concerned with the welfare of all creatures, human or otherwise, when we can't even let a mosquito fly by without killing it.

Well, that's just some food for thought.  Back to the hummingbird.  Because it's way more important.

I owed something to that hummingbird.  By contributing to and enjoying the educational facilities on campus, I have created a sense of responsibility to live in harmony with the animals in the area.

But I failed.  Not every story has a happy ending.  Especially the mundane ones.

Having walked around for two hours trying to console myself that the hummingbird would eventually come down on his own, after shirking my reading for the afternoon, after eating lunch because surely my needs must come first, I walked through Kerr Hall one more time to see its progress.

I was quite pleased to see that the bird had moved from the concrete slab side of the array towards the other wingtip side.  This way, little dude!  You're almost there!  You're right above me!  It was so close to the end!  So close to flying away and telling its kids about that crazy day Mom or Dad almost got trapped by the mystical invisible wall.

But it fell.  Of course it fell.  Right in front of me.  After a day of trying to fly through an impossible barrier.

I immediately scooped up the little thing from the ground.  What a frail creature.  It was so light.  It's a fucking hummingbird, of course it weighs virtually nothing.  It's eyes slowly closed.  I can't feel its heart beating.  How would I even detect a heartbeat without the tiniest stethoscope in the world.  It probably just passed out.  No need to get sensational.  Keep it together.  It's just a bird, dude.

I hustled back upstairs to fetch the sliced orange left out on the balcony.  I set it behind some bushes in the shade of the building.  On a big leaf.  I squeezed some of the juice out in front its beak.

I couldn't miss class to see how things turned out.  It was gone the next day.  I guess I'll never know if it was eaten by a raccoon or if it perked up and drank some fresh-squeezed orange juice and said thanks dude you're great i'll be on my merry way now!  Choose one, right?  Whatever is more comforting.