Take the Picture, Because You'll Forget More Than You Think

So, a bird flew into my house this week — something I've always low-key worried about, but apparently not enough to actually keep my windows and doors closed during the day.

And yes, I realize that sentence sounds like it should end with, “and then I opened another window and it left,” followed by everyone nodding politely and moving on with their lives. Birds fly in, birds panic, humans panic harder, eventually someone finds a window, and we all agree to never speak of it again.

Except that’s not what happened.

This bird eventually landed close enough to my work area for me to catch him — gently, because I do have standards — and he was surprisingly cool with it. So cool with it, he refused to just fly away like I thought he would when I walked him up to the open door, and eventually, all the way outside. Instead, he decided to just hang out on my finger, like we had scheduled this.

I stood there for a while, waiting for him to remember he was a wild animal and I was a person in a pro-pineapple-on-pizza T-shirt who'd just escorted him out of my home, where he definitely didn't belong. That realization never arrived.

So, I took advantage of the situation and walked him over to Seth’s window so he could see. Then I took a few photos and a video, because I was pretty sure I could before the bird came to his senses and flew away. (Turns out I was right.)

Eventually, I actually had to encourage this bird to fly off. And when I did, he left, and that was the end of the moment. But then, almost immediately, my brain got to work rewriting history like an intern with zero supervision, as it tends to do.

For someone with such an active imagination, I sure am good at sucking the magic out of my memories of things when left to my own devices.

Memory Is a Terrible Archivist (and Also a Little Bit of a Liar)

Obviously, my memory doesn't wake up every morning thinking, “How can I preserve the richness of Shannon’s lived experience?” Instead, it wakes up and says, “We’re going to streamline this for efficiency," especially these days.

So, give an incident like this a few hours, and the entire situation becomes "a bird flew in, and I got it back outside." And that’s the whole headline from then on — clean, reasonable, and not terribly useful.

Conspicuously missing are all the parts that actually made it weird (and wonderful):

• The way he just sat there, like I was a tree with excellent customer service
• The fact that I was able to walk him around the house like I was showing off a museum exhibit
• The moment I circled back to get my phone, and he didn’t even consider leaving

Memory doesn’t hate those details. It just usually discreetly escorts them out of the building and locks the door behind them. Bold of them, considering those details are somehow the most important parts of the equation.

Photos Aren't Just Cute, They're Evidence

We've all heard "pics, or it didn't happen" before (or at least we did before the age of AI really complicated that idea, but that's an entirely different conversation). We also like to think of the act of taking photos as capturing memories, which sounds good but also slightly like something printed on some grandmother's cheesy throw blanket.

In reality, photos function more like very calm, very unimpressed witnesses. They don’t care how you feel about what happened, nor do they care how your brain prefers to retell the story later. They serve as an inviolable record of what occurred that you can actually refer back to later as needed (or desired).

So, when I look at the images I took of that bird now, I also think about nuances my memory absolutely would have lost (if not talked its way entirely out of) by now:

• The exact angle of the light that afternoon
• The way his tiny feet wrapped around my finger
• The fact that the bird was alert and healthy, not stunned and out of it

Without those photos, I’d remember the idea of the moment. But with them, I get the actual event, all details intact, with no editorial interference. Those are two very different experiences, and only one of them is reliable.

Normally, I'm Not a Picture Person

I grew up with a mother who was constantly either trying to get me to pose for photos or pushing me to take more of my own.

Meanwhile, I'm someone who's always hated attention and detested having my photo taken, even during my vanity years when I was super-meticulous about my presentation and all. So, I grew into someone who doesn't particularly like photos or think they're important.

Sure, I'll take some sometimes, but mostly just when I plan on posting them to social media or actively sharing them with someone else. They're rarely just for me.

And as far as decorating my home? A grand total of zero of the photos on display in my home were put there by me. I have my own ways of making spaces my own. Those ways have a lot more to do with skulls, weird witchy shit, and random curiosities than they do with cameras.

Logically, I know photos are important for all the reasons other people say they are, so I'm trying to learn better. But still.

Proof Changes the Story, Whether You Admit It or Not

When you have evidence, events hit differently, especially if you plan on sharing the experience with others in the future.

Without the photos and the video I took, this becomes just another story I tell — a story that would probably sound like complete and utter bullshit if I didn't have evidence to back me up, especially considering how much people lie these days.

But with the photos, that option disappears.

Some Moments Deserve a Second Witness

Now, I'm hardly suggesting that we all walk around documenting every sandwich we eat or every mildly pleasant breeze we encounter, because I do think more of us need to learn to just live in the moment more often. Some things really should exist once and then politely exit the chat.

But every so often, something happens that is just strange enough, just specific enough, that it deserves a little backup.

I wanted to remember the way that bird just showed up, behaved in a way that made no sense, and then left. And because I took a few pictures, it didn’t immediately wind up flattened and repackaged into some neat, easily forgettable version of itself.

Instead, I can go back anytime and see it as it actually was.

Because some things are worth confirming later. And every so often, it's nice to stumble across a concrete reminder that life sometimes really is a lot more magical than I tend to give it credit for.