It is dark outside. Very dark. The concrete beneath my bare feet is cold and my first thought as I lift the lid of the trash can to toss in an empty box is that winter is almost here, that soon I will not be stepping outside barefoot, that lying ahead are months of shivering.
Owen stands beside me, staring into the darkness and considering whether he wants to make a break for it, whether some raccoon or possum or armadillo has breached the perimeter of his domain and deserves being chased. He decides against it and backs up into the light and warmth of the house.
I wrap my arms across my chest and watch the landscape come into focus as my eyes adjust. As much as I dread the approach of winter, there is something exhilarating about the cool dampness that is an October evening. No longer burdened by the weight of summer’s heat, my shoulders straighten and my breaths deepen. I am just about to step inside when I hear it: “Whoo hoo hoo whoo hoo.” The cry comes from the depths of the branch, somewhere among the ageless pines and scrub oaks is a Great Horned Owl, tufted and camouflaged. The call freezes my movement and I forget about my feet.
I don’t know how long I listen to the lament, its minor chords wafting through the night air.
Six nights later I am again standing at the back door. And again I hear an owl, this time an Eastern Screech Owl: “Whoooooooo whoooooooo.” The high-pitched trill is floating toward me from farther away this time. If the call of the Great Horned Owl is a mournful bluegrass ballad, that of the Eastern Screech is an aria.
People who know about such things say that nighttime hooting is primarily for the purpose of notifying intruders that they have entered a particular owl’s territory or warning nearby owls that a predator is near. I am flattering myself, I know, to think that I am the intended audience, but it feels as though my avian neighbors want to tell me something. The only problem is that I need a translator.
Or maybe I don’t. I have lived in close proximity to the natural world for a long time now, long enough to have learned some things that only nature can teach. I have learned that whatever is planted – cotton or sweet corn or effort –, harvest can’t be hurried. I have learned that hearts, not just fields, can benefit from lying fallow for a while. I have learned that tears, like the rain, will not last forever.
Staring into the autumn night, I realize the owls are not telling me anything. They are, in a language that is my own, asking a simple question. Nearing the end of what has been a long year, a hard year, a year with no rest stops, no coffee breaks, and no time outs, they want to know who: Who am I? Who do I want to be?
It is a question usually reserved for first days of kindergarten and freshman psychology classes and job interviews. It hardly feels necessary at my age, but the owls are insistent and they are such good neighbors I feel compelled to at least try to answer it.
But not tonight. Tonight I will retreat and sleep and dream, safe in knowing the Great Horned and the Eastern Screech and all the others will not let me forget.
Copyright 2024
Since retiring those questions have become continual — and I wonder why they haven’t always been so. (I kinda know the answer, but “if I had it to do over again,”…)