Between October and November 2024 I attended a six-week Nature and Environmental Writing online course with London’s Central Saint Martins. I’m publishing here the first in five weekly assignments we completed during the course. I’m grateful to my fellow classmates and our tutor, amazing writer Joanna Pocock, for a truly enriching, inspiring writing experience.

I hurry back to my room to retrieve my water bottle. I must have left it on my desk. While I pick it up, I take a distracted look around. That’s when I notice it, sitting on the shelf by the bird calendar. I couldn’t think of a more fitting spot for it. My eyes dwell on its silky texture, its thick brown stripes: light, dark, light, dark, running down its whole length. I can’t help glancing at it every time I walk past my desk. Sometimes it’s a quick glance, other times it’s a prolonged look. I stare at it almost longingly, as if expecting it to reveal all of its secrets, to tell me its story.

I found it a few weeks ago on a river path in the scorching sun. My friend and I parked our car in the main square of a little village called Ivaň, around 40 km south of Brno, just north of the Nové Mlýny reservoir. It was a weekend of celebration in Ivaň, as we found out when we got there. Neat rows of tables were lined down the square, paper mache flowers hanging from the metal fence around it, a small fun fair in the other square nearby. It felt like they were welcoming us. I, for sure, felt a bit like that. We’d tried to take this trip a few months earlier, but roadworks in the village forced us to drive past and head elsewhere. But that was the day.

View from one of the bridges over river Jihlava

We crossed the bridge out of the village and turned left into the fields. The sun was high, the trail dusty and dry under our feet. When was it going to rain next? I suppressed the familiar pang of angst surging in my chest and focused on the smell of freshly cut grass that filled the air. I took a deep breath. At the end of the field we joined the path by the river, a narrow blade of asphalt flooded by the sun.

I took a good look around, eager to spot some birds. We resumed the walk, but I soon froze on the spot when I saw something half hidden in the grass at the edge of the path. A slight gust of warm breeze gave it a gentle nudge. That’s how it showed itself to me. I dashed toward it. No one was around, yet I feared someone else might see and take it first. With slow, careful movements I knelt down, picked it up with two fingers, and stood up again. I looked at it like one might look at a rare gem and marvel at its rarity. It was only a bird feather, but to me it did look like a rare gem.

The joy I felt as I held it up to my face. I’d wanted this to happen for such a long time. I’d pictured it in my head, even: One day I’ll find a special bird feather and I’ll pick it up and I’ll get to keep it. This was no ordinary feather, nothing like the pigeon or gull feathers one can stumble into on a regular walk in the city or on the beach. This feather was different to me.

Questions instantly flooded my head: who did it belong to? A raptor. Maybe a kestrel? How long had it been sitting there for? Where was the bird flying to when it lost it? Or was it fighting another bird? Perhaps it was diving down to catch prey. Or did it just fall off? Which part of the bird body was it from? I’ll have to research it when I get home.

The next morning I emptied my backpack. I retrieved the feather from the small bag I’d carefully folded around it. I wasn’t sure where to put it, but I knew I wanted to see it without having to open a box or drawer. I wanted it to be on display, like a reminder of beauty always at hand. By the bird calendar next to the desk, of course. It only made sense.

Since that day, every time I’m sitting at my desk, I end up looking at the feather at one point or another. The perfection of it never fails to baffle me: its oblong shape, maybe 12-13 cm in length; those stripes, like casual paintbrushes on a canvas; silky to the touch; a pointed end, like the nib of a fountain pen. There’s always something new to observe or notice about it.

A feather is a feather, I tell myself, yet to me it’s a lot more than that: a memory, a trigger, a summer walk, a village fun fair. It’s a whole story I’ll never know more about, yet I, too, have somehow become part of.

The gem

Life in the city