My Hoot Owl

We have a hoot owl who lives around here somewhere. Sometimes I hear him right at dark. He seems to hang out in the trees just outside the bedroom. He has a sort of whispery hoo-hoo-hoooo sound that he makes, and for some reason I find it comforting. Once I was in the hot tub at twilight, and saw a pale gray ghost fly by in my periphery. Then I saw him outlined against the sky, way up in the topmost limbs of one of the largest oaks on the place. There's a squirrel's nest up there, as well, and I wondered if he was looking for fresh meat. Didn't see him make a kill, and in a while he disappeared. He can leave the squirrels alone, but I'd just as soon he caught any mice, rats, or snakes he might happen upon. I like the idea of nature taking care of itself.

A friend of mine had an owl come to his birdbath one evening during a drought. It was a ground bath, not one of the kind on a pedestal. I have a ground bath, and we've been in a serious drought. I wish my owl would bathe for me. I would like a closer look at him. It's easy to forget they're birds, they're so majestic, so large and such loners. I had a screech owl make a nest and rear young inside a hole in the eaves at the lakehouse I used to own. They made a tremendous mess. One day I climbed a ladder to look inside the hole with a flashlight. Two white downy hatchlings with big round eyes peered back at me.

When I lived in San Marcos great horned owls appeared every October. They would perch high on top of the telephone poles, and looked like Halloween statues silhouetted there. This latest owl is a barn owl, and he lives here permanently, not just in October. I'd like to know exactly where he lives, but unless I happen upon him somewhere on the grounds I suppose I'll never know. This house lies deep in an oak motte, so it's possible one of these trees is his home, but just as likely, he lives over the high fence that surrounds the thousand-acre ranch adjoining us on two sides. Anyway, I like having him -- or her -- here.

Today is Daddy's 85th birthday, and I've had him on my mind all day. I spend as much time as I can with him but it never seems to be enough. We were together all day yesterday and will be again tonight. It's somehow disconcerting to me to see the bent and shrunken man he has become. In my girlhood he seemed like a giant, so strong and capable. He was and has always been, my hero. I hope to have him for many more years, but I do see the sunset in his face now. All the changes he has experienced -- I think he's borne them well. He's begun to reminisce a lot. Occasionally he tells me a new story, one I haven't heard. At one time he was writing these stories down, and I wonder if that's something he's still pursuing. Think I'll mention it to him tonight.

I have not made the least effort towards writing this week. The SO went out of town for a couple of days working, and I had plenty of alone-time to get something going, but as usual, made excuses. The hardest part of writing sometimes is just sitting yourself down and DOING IT! When I taught my writing workshops I had an entire lecture devoted to finding time to write. I need to dig out my class notes and take my own advice.

Last night there was a piece on TV on the making of talent. We tend to think of talent as something a person is either born with or without, and so to "make" talent sounds like an impossibility. But the truth is talent can actually be learned, it can be practiced, and studies are beginning to show that the more one practices the more white matter one's brain grows, and synapses start firing more and more in sync. The TV program was primarily dealing with musical talent and sports talent, but watching, I also related it to writing, to all the practicing I did throughout the 1980s, writing story after story, sending them off, getting them back, papering the walls of my writing room with the rejection letters, until finally -- oh happy day! -- the practicing began to pay off. One story a year for a while, published in very obscure quarterlies, then less obscure ones, then my first $1000, paid-on-acceptance story, getting my first agent, first book contract. Then the career really took off in the 90s, until... now....

I know that I can write. I'm confident in that. What seems to be lacking in me now is the fire to write. This blog is fun, there's no pressure here. I'm enjoying this kind of writing, putting random thoughts down, hoping someone is reading, but if not, it's still a release for that part of me that wants to communicate through the written word. I have a lot of theories for why I lost my fire, but those can be saved for another post.

Onward ....