Owl
We spent last week out in Massachusetts with my brother and his husband, celebrating thankfulness and family and food in their new house. Eric and I have seen early/mid fall in New England a couple of times, but this was our first visit in late fall, after the trees had lost (most of) their leaves and the breeze had taken on a bite that said, “winter is on the way.”
It was in February that Eric and I moved out to our house and April when Greg and Brian moved into theirs - so getting to talk through the stresses and joys of renovations and projecting that we’ve BOTH experienced in our new homes was exactly what I needed. I’ve spent so many months feeling like I’ve let everything else slide while we tinkered away out here - but hearing them talk about how their projects have also been all-consuming (leaving no time for visiting with dear friends or exploring their new town) had me feeling so much less alone.
I’m cutting myself a little slack, I guess. It’s just another reminder that I haven’t been lazy or antisocial - just massively, ridiculously busy. Things will return to normal, given a little more time.
But now, on to today’s word…
Wise.
This design is, perhaps, the most stylized of the lot - and it may require a head tilt to the right (and, even then, a little imagination) to fully see the letters. Like Fox, Owl deals with an old cliché - but again, it turns out there’s some truth in it.
I’ve only heard Owl, with my own ears, a few times in my life - but there is something about the sound, coming softly through the trees, that stirs something in my mind. It’s like old memories, that I can’t quite bring into focus…perhaps a time before screens, or even words on a page, when the flickering dance between shadow and flame was the night’s only entertainment. Hearing Owl makes me feel like there is something I’ve forgotten, something I SHOULD know but cannot grasp. What is it she’s trying to tell me, that all-seeing watcher of the night?
Twice last week, once in town and once deep in the woods, Owl spoke to us - and both times I was stopped in my tracks, the hair on the back of my neck rising as I tried to pinpoint the call echoing around me. I never did catch sight of her tawny (or snowy?) wings, but it felt like enough to know she had seen us walking beneath all those bare branches.
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Original watercolor painting (8”x6”) available Saturday December 11 at 12pm Mountain Time!