My return to writing!

This is only the temporary home for the first post of my new project (one piece of public writing every week for a year). It doesn't have a name yet, and it's unfortunately based on a new year's resolution, but at least it fits in with my regular writing pattern: I had an idea for a few days, my deadline approached, and I scrambled up until the very last minute. I'll re-post this in some fancy new format (potentially in a wordpress), but here's my first entry. Happy 2013!


A Dead Owl

                I saw a dead owl today. It was lying partly on top of a fern, but mostly on the landscaping’s topsoil. The first thing I noticed was that its wings weren’t askew or crooked, and it didn’t have a bad leg or some other deformity. Apart from a red smear on its beak, I could have easily mistaken it for a taxidermied specimen that had fallen out of someone’s window. But it was without a doubt an owl, and it was not asleep. I rarely contemplate death these days, so I was disappointed when stumbling upon a dead thing didn’t instantly trigger memories of my volatile youth. It was shocking, because I don’t see too many owls in my neighbourhood. Wildlife isn’t rare, but usually I come across more urban fare – a squirrel, or a crow. Owls are one of those things I associate with driving an hour out of town to see in a real forest, rather than the urban and suburban parks I still try to lose myself in. I know in my mind that the parks have been intentionally designed to make it easy for anyone to navigate and make their way home, but sometimes I imagine walking off the footpaths and blazing a trail to somewhere new. I try to convince myself that there’s some hidden pond that I can’t see from any GPS map, and it’s got cool things that they can’t have in the main park like a fox’s den or a small beaver dam that’s the real reason the creek seems to spontaneously dry up.

                There wasn’t a whole lot of thought in my immediate actions after seeing the owl. I didn’t stop to think about the partner it may have had, or whether it was on its way to fetch a snack for its children, or try to attribute anything particularly human to it. I don’t know much about owl ecology, though I learned to track them by looking for their pellets. You know you’ve come across owl pellets when it’s white and chalky looking, because they eat their prey whole and can’t digest all the calcium from the bones. Small knowledge bits like that are what keep me from humanizing this owl; I can’t relate on a personal level to something that doesn’t have the patience to spit out its food’s bones, despite knowing it will do a number on its digestive tract. But then again, I eat french fries. So while I may not have been this owl’s gastronomical superior, I’m going to revel a bit in being the only one of the two of us still alive to make the comparison at all. It’s a pitiful victory, and I know that taking pleasure in outliving a bird ought to be morally beneath me, but lately I’ve enjoyed feeling a bit less mortal than the world around me. I’ve made it to nearly the halfway point in my life with no serious medical history. Who can say that? Women count having a child as part of a serious medical history, so I haven’t got many friends of my age who know how much of a relief it is to have avoided regular hospital visits, long-term drug regiments, and constant check-ups with people who seemingly want to poke me in every orifice I’ve got then tell me I’m fine. I could pay a girl to do the exact same thing, only she would get me off as well.

                I found one of the property’s maintenance staff – Jeffrey – and brought him to see the owl. I imagined he would look at the owl, say something mildly meaningful, tip his hat, and ask me to help him ceremoniously bury it in the forest, where it could give itself back to the earth. Jeffrey wasn’t wearing a hat to tip, though, and as much as I would like to believe that he was a sentimental man with humble working-class values, Jeffrey decided that the best solution for the owl was to scoop it into his half full bag of yard trimmings, and get back to his begonias. I was stunned. I didn’t make up any ideas about this owl, yet I had an expectation that I was going to respect its death and treat it like I would a child. I didn’t feel sad, but I wanted to mourn. Jeffrey didn’t, and while I could have asked him to put the body back, or run back to my place, grabbed a shoe box, and asked him if I could bury it, I didn’t think it would be worth the look he would give me. Or the offhanded comment he would make to the next person he saw that day. I have friends of friends living in this building, and I didn’t want to chance one of them hearing about the owl I decided to bury in an old Reebok shoe box. I’m not even sure if I have the right to bury something within the property lines as a renter, let alone the logistical barrier I’d face of finding a shovel. I’ve been gradually accumulating all those things TV tells me I need like a proper tool set, decent cookware, and an impractical collection of coffee table books, but a shovel has never fit into my lifestyle. Burying owls has never had much room, either, but I think today was a perfect example of how I need to plan more for the unexpected. Tomorrow I could suddenly be hunted by the revenue service for accidentally filling out my taxes incorrectly, and would need to make a speedy getaway in the car I don’t have, or I would need to climb out of my fourth-storey window with the emergency ladder I don’t have. I know I ought not to be paranoid, but once you start thinking about all the misfortunes that could possibly happen to you, it gets pretty overwhelming.

                This owl doesn’t need to worry about being overwhelmed anymore, though. And while that should provide me some more morbid comfort, I wonder if owls even experience anxiety or stress the same way humans do. Its brain is nothing like mine, because I wouldn’t mistake a few trees’ reflection on some glass for a forest. But still, staring at an owl in a Reebok shoe box, sweating and panting because I just ran up the stairs to avoid being seen carrying my fluffy bundle covered in grass clippings, and desperately hoping that Jeffrey doesn’t look inside his bag again, I have to question my own reasoning.