——An email to a friend-
I have a story for you, it was like we were in wild kingdom! Last night around 10:00 p.m. Rick and I took the dogs out as he was leaving. We stepped across the alley when suddenly there was a swoop and beating of wings coming out of the alley, very near us.... descending upon us and then clunk, a heavyish-felt sound. Ka-thunk. Just Ka. Thunk.
And then whoosh off it flew, heavy wings lifting it up slowly without it's dead body in tow.
It took a second to figure out what had happened—the whole thing happened so fast.
I guess we upset an owl who was in the middle of hunting and eating a small hawk. It swooped down towards us and dropped its prey and flew off. The hawk was almost dead it was just kind of twitching it was so gross it made me sad I didn't understand it--because I have never seen anything like that so close. I thought it was a rat at first it was so heavy and big.
That's my story and I knew you'd appreciate it since you know what happened to Tank's mother (the owl ate her)... It crossed my mind that maybe the owl decided it wanted Tank instead of what it had and dropped the hawk to grab a Pomeranian instead—losing both (Aesop told it: http://read.gov/aesop/026.html)
Okay that's my story—it seems incomplete, but it really revved me up last night you should have seen me jumping up and down, screaming in a whisper so as not to bother the neighbors.
I wrote that on September 17th, 2020, and tucked it away, hoping to revisit it later. A weekly date had finished with a beau minutes before. It had not been a satisfactory end. I was just thinking to myself. "He has his priorities and they do not include me. He will never think of me as part of his life, but rather a responsibility to fulfill, a drag, pulling him away from his life." And so, because I expected to be his happy priority, as he was mine, I had just decided then that we should probably end it, and to me, this realization was painfully dramatic. As the dogs and I walked him out I felt the owl was giving testimony.
“If you don’t stop now", the owl said, “the relationship will eventually drain you of all energy, exhaust you, essentially drop you in the alley as dead as this hawk."
Fast Forward to Friday, August 7th,2021. The Delta Variant has just swooped into Ellensburg spiking numbers 103%, and we were barely aware of it because we are, of course, vaccinated. It wasn’t as late in the evening, but it was in the same spot, when the owl checked in, this time with his approval, I thought. My spirits were high and I was invigorated, surrounded with the love of some good friends heading out for an extra fun walk.
The owl swooped down the same path as before, just over our heads, but with empty talons this time The previously mentioned beau now just a friend, joined us later that evening for lighthearted fun and we parted politely at the end of the evening, each of us the priority in our own life.
So here I am, almost a year from the first incomplete owl story with what joyfully felt at first like a complete story to tell. I’m guessing it’s not really the whole story.
One of my very early rocks, painted in 2017, looks like the owl who is now my wise neighbor.