They come to visit sometimes. Their somewhat menacing presence can be seen shrouded against the moonlight. They sit on the phone line outside my house. Two of them, within each others sightline but still they call to each other as if they are not visible, each to the other.
Sometimes they come in the early evening, most times it is almost dawn. Such a random place and time for them to gather...I wonder, often, what they are looking for.
We don’t have a plethora of mice, and the cats are not allowed outside. The dog too large to fall prey to owls. But they come often nevertheless.
I wonder what they are saying to each other...given the meager meal substitutes at my home, I am guessing something like:
“This place sucks for grub...”
“Yes, I know but you always think it is going to be different...”
“Why don’t you remind me then?”
“I do, whoooo, whoooo”
That is what I imagine their conversation being like, each time.
But if I am honest, I also believe their arrival imports a deeper meaning.
I am in this weird time in my life. I have tried love and loving and it has all worked out badly, repeatedly. Sometimes my choice of mate, sometimes my over estimation of my own abilities. Mostly, trauma, historic trauma for all involved. And I feel like I am arriving at a place in life where I will become irrelevant. No longer desired by men in general. Men having many more options for more youthful dating if they even slightly have their shit together. Sometimes I wonder if all women just have this built in settling system designed to keep them occupied, but never truly happy. Almost all the women I know, beautiful all, choose to remain single than to suffer the fools they meet on the regular. How can one gender’s standards be so low and the other so high?
I remember I had a roommate once, an old guy friend who was flaming out in life in a somewhat spectacular style and he arrived to occupy my couch for a period. After he sobered up and got himself straight, he thought that he should begin dating. The thought was so absurd to me. Here he was sleeping on his high school friend’s couch, still unemployed, though he was on the verge of starting several companies with no capital and barely a plan, but dating was something he was now ready for.
I suggested that perhaps, just maybe, he might want to secure employment, and some stability in his emotional life before drawing some woman into the fray. He was offended and that irked me a great deal. Although I am not sure which was more bothersome - the fact that he felt entitled and ready or the fact that I knew he would find a willing participant, likely more than one.
I knew there was some woman out there that would sign up to house, help secure employment and care for this man...I mean I needed to look no further than the mirror. I was not interested in him romantically, but there I was housing him, helping him stay sober and encouraging him to look for work and I wasn’t even dating him! Which is both progress and not at the same time. At least if I would have been dating him, I would have received some benefit...instead of where I was in that relationship which was in a role of irritating mother figure.
So the owls and their visits tend to ask me the only question they can possibly ask...”Who?” And it feels increasingly like an either or question. Me or him? And I both fear and relish in the peace that the answer continues to be "me". So many hims I have allowed to take center stage, to accommodate, to house, to love, to control, to “help” that I have found myself broken on their seductively, rocky shores.
No longer lost in the delusions of my younger self, no, I see with stark clarity the reality of my past forays into love and loving. And am reminded of their futility and sadness with every “Hoo” I hear from my nightly visitors.
Are they omens?
Of what?
Are they really asking me who?
Or is that merely a convenient coincidence?
Are the visits signs to remind me to trust my instincts?
Opportunities to trust my insights?
Do they represent the proverbial darkness and unknown?
Their repeated visits and beckoning call invite me to, no, well, demand that I ask “Who?” Have I moved past the time where men are interested? Or have I moved into a time where I no longer am? I just can’t play the game any longer. The need for sex no longer dictating my actions. And the need for their companionship has long left me wanting as it comes with too many other demands. Which always seem to leave me bereft, and wishing I had held fast to my first inclination which is always and forever, to run.
Perhaps the owls mean nothing at all and their repeated arrival at my home merely coincidence. Except that I do not believe in coincidence and that has made my life far more meaningful and exciting for my effort.
I suppose time will tell. I will be moved into whatever comes next for me, owls or not. And the questions that I ask myself really do come from deep within, this passionate place that I always fear to show. This independent but loving place where I tend far too often to protect instead of reveal.
So for now, I will take the owls as reminders of my own deep knowledge, intuition and ability to see beyond the surface, both my own and any hims that are so brave to take me on. I shall continue to trust my instincts just as these owls for whatever reason, continue to come and take respite in the shelter of my land. And allow their presence to remind me, that God lives within in this aging sack of bones...and that desire can spark at any time, at any age, and that while I am learning to do this whole thing differently, it is never completely over...until it is finally and completely over.
And I hope that when it is finally and completely over, the owls will come be sentinels of my final demise.
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