I was in a dream when I heard my name, “The Sacramento starts in Mt. Shasta, up by where Rebeca lives.” I had fallen asleep during our tour of the rice fields only to come back to the living when I heard my name. Then I saw it on the right, I gasped. X saw it too, “there goes a great blue heron.”
At that moment I didn’t know that the great blue heron would dictate the rest of the day, rather, had already dictated the day and much of the night and perhaps the rest of my life.
encounter each other
at the outer edge of desire
with almost hopeless mercy
and a reservoir
of mutual respect
~Maria Popova
And I remembered that piece I wrote about you and a great blue heron I photographed at the Sonny Bono preserve, which was published in the Winter Tanager. It was the only piece I’ve ever written that my mother has ever liked, she said it must have been nice for the person it had been written for. I wanted to say, I don’t think he cares one way or the other that I wrote something so nice for him. What would X think if someone wrote such a nice piece about him and a great blue heron?
“Does anyone want to sit up front and I take the back?” I asked the passengers in the back of the truck.
“You don’t like sitting here in the front?” asked X with a tone I was not expecting, as if to say, what, you don’t like sitting next to me? The Great blue heron had spoken.
risk every safety
and every constant
for a single sunbeam
of wonder
a golden reflection
of a larger life
in the pure stream
of the possible
~Maria Popova
“I like sitting here, but I wanted to give others the chance to sit up front.” I told him. And I guess I had set the tone first, when we met the night before. I knew immediately who he was, I have been reading about him for years, admiring his work, so before he could say anything I had said, “Hi X! I was totally thinking about you on my drive down here, seeing all those red winged blackbirds, and I wondered if there were any trics among them.”
As we drove through the rice fields, we were looking for ones which were still flooded providing habitat for fall migration. “Is that one of them? The one where all the egrets are?” I asked.
X probably thought, dumb girl, she doesn’t even know what a flooded rice field looks like. “That is actually an alfalfa field.”
The day progressed but the great blue heron had worked its medicine. At dinner time, I turned fifty, the Dodgers won the World Series in the most dramatic of ways and we walked on into the night bar-hopping until everyone left but X and I. But it was late and the bars were closing and we had to be up early so we walked back towards my hotel. I thought of a Neko Case song, City Swans
You linger just a little long,
I see your gun is drawn with the safety on
You can walk me back to my hotel like it was home.
I said he could stay so he wouldn’t have to drive back to Sacramento and be back again at 6 am. “It’s a huge room,” I said, “I can call the front desk for a cot. I have extra brand-new toothbrushes and clean t-shirts with raptors on them.”
“Thanks, but I snore when I’ve been drinking.” He said. As if I wasn’t many whiskeys in and would even notice. But perhaps he was thinking of my position and his position and how it wouldn’t be a good look, or maybe that didn’t matter one iota because then I thought of another Neko Case song, Curse of the I-5 Corridor:
Baby I’m afraid, but it’s not your fault
Maybe I should go home alone tonight
“See you in the morning for the bird walk?” He asked.
“I probably won’t make it to the walk tomorrow,” I said, “I have a friend maybe coming to visit in the morning. His schedule is crazy, so we never get to connect.”
“Okay, well, have fun with what’s his face, your friend.”
And the great blue heron bent his knees and took flight like they always do when they’ve been startled. The single sunbeam of wonder had vanished, the clock had struck 12, I turned back into a pumpkin and I knew I’d never see X again.
And you were knocking at my hotel door at 7 am like it was Sunday mass. And you left within the hour through the back door like I was sin. The golden reflection of a larger life reduced to 45 minutes in a town off the I-5 with no ties to either one of us because there really are no ties between us just fleeting moments up and down the interstate when the planets align.
Orbit is so easy, you haven’t gained a day
We’re two self-fulfilling prophecies
Who don’t even have each other
Not that we would ever get away with it
*lyrics from City Swans by Neko Case, The Curse of the I-5 Corridor by Neko Case.
My Love is for the Birds - Sketches 