I recently learned that pigeons, thanks to their high intelligence, can recognize themselves in the mirror. That upon looking at their reflection, they have a sense of self-awareness. That they are one of the few species with this rare, incredible ability.

This seemingly interesting piece of information- an innocent "fun fact" I read in a shabby, outdated magazine, however, sent me into a fit of fury. The sudden, unexpected realization that these birds that I had deemed inferior all my life, the same ones I pitied for being abandoned after years of domestication, the ones I made a habit of feeding- out of compassion but mostly guilt, possessed an ability I don't.

All my life I have felt a disconnection between how I felt about myself and what I saw in the mirror. Even as I've approached the twilight of my twenties, I feel detached to my own reflection. The girl that stares back at me from the glass surface feels like a distant cousin - someone I've briefly met once in childhood and forgotten entirely about, someone I have no intention of keeping around, someone I have no solicitude for.

I stare incessantly for hours but I do not recognize her. And in rare occasions that I do, I do not love her.

I've discovered even more recently that the pigeons, too, look at their own reflection in bewilderment sometimes- for they recognize the figure in the mirror as their own kind, but not as themselves. They too sometimes question what they're looking at, wondering if it's a friend, or a foe that needs to be eliminated.

Upon this new revelation, when I now look at these birds - their bodies the color of settled dust and their necks iridescent and glowing, perched on my windowsills sheltering themselves from the rain, I feel like they are my conspecific. That although they don't know it, they understand my woe. That at the very core we are the same- our four-chambered heart thudding as we try to make sense of who it is that's peering at us from behind the shiny glass.

That although we fail to recognize ourselves, we recognize each other.

And when morning comes and I feed them yet another fistful of grains, I will look at them with kindness as will they, and momentarily, in the calm of the dawn, that will be enough.