land of the sky so blue

You’re in the kitchen when the dogs start barking at the front door. You know no one is here, or the cameras in the front of the property, the driveway or the front door would have gone off. But you trust your dogs so you go look out the window from the guest bedroom. You see nothing, but you get the feeling something just happened. Then you spot it in a far away branch of that interior oak PG&E is going to fell because it’s too close to the power line. A hawk.

You don’t know when or how you got so good at spotting hawks from hundreds of feet away.

Easy momma, you can close your eyes,

it’s a good thing now and the sun’s gonna rise real soon

It’s not very close and he’s facing the other way and he seems wet and ruffled from days of rain so you can’t really tell what kind of hawk it is. He must have flown low, scaring all the birds and your dogs. You get your binoculars and you case the hawk, which by now you have decided is a Cooper’s Hawk. You don’t have much to go by but size, side-profile and the silhouette of a longish tail. The tail is what you’re going on. That longer tail of accipiter hawks vs Buteo hawks. But you still can’t be sure so you want to see it in flight. Your dog wants your attention about something and you look down to tell him to hold on a sec. When you look up, the hawk is gone. That’s all it took. One second of distraction to miss it all. You look at the time and you’ve spent almost an hour still and silent watching the hawk with hopes of being able to identify it.

You don’t know when or how it became so easy to sit still for so long looking at a bird perched on a dead oak branch.

Easy does it, we can compromise

in land of the sky so blue

You and the dogs don’t want to waste the one beautiful clear day you have so you go outside to inspect the property for fallen trees, clogged gutters to the French drain and other possible mishaps. Everyone is feeling bad for you because you’re spending the holidays alone, but you don’t feel one bit bad or lonely. But how do you convince others that what they fear the most, is what you most enjoy. Solitude.

You don’t know when it became more than enough with the land and its birds and your pets.

In my mind she’s running circles round a life she used to call her very own

Easy does it, we can just slow down in the land of the sky so blue

Land of the sky so blue

So blue

~Lyrics from “Easy Does It” by Briscoe

In that tiny kinda scary house by the woods, by the woods, by the woods…

She never let on how insane it was

in that tiny kinda scary house

by the woods, by the woods, by the woods, by the woods.

You don’t need a spaceship

they don’t know you’ve already lived

on the other side of the galaxy. ~T.Amos

I have gotten no more real interest on my house after that terrible offer I declined. Someone saw it yesterday and loved it. “But she’s scared.” my agent said.

“Scared of fires?” I asked.

“Yes. Her house burned down in the Carr Fire.”

I know everyone loves my house but the fear of fires is a legitimate concern. As I tossed and turned last night stressing over everything going on with me, I thought, ‘maybe the Park Fire is too recent.’

The Park Fire was finally 100% contained on Friday after three months and 329K acres and hundreds of homes burned. Maybe after people put some distance between them and the Park Fire, my house may get a good offer. Or maybe I just stay and send my pets to my parents’ for the next fire season. I don’t know. But I can’t spend anymore time thinking about it. And I mean, what kind of narrative would I hold on to if it wasn’t the one of living alone in the woods. The one of living in a subdivision in Redding isn’t a very exciting narrative at all.

This morning over coffee, I recorded 15 different bird species. And a first in the yard, I had a red-breasted sapsucker! It really is a treat to have a front seat to all this nature. We even had a snake incident last week. Fortunately, it was only a gopher snake. But I understand why someone would be scared to live here, it has recovered so fast from the Carr Fire. I didn’t think we’d have anything that could burn for another 10 years, yet merely six years later, here we are, and all the pines are coming back all over the hills, and at 4 feet tall, it looks like a giant Christmas tree farm because they are all growing that perfect and uniform.

I will keep the house on the market and stop thinking about it, I have too much birding and work stuff going on. I am about to make a three year commitment in the birding world. More to come on that.

Screenshot

The Lower Fire

Honey, tell me how your love runs true

and I can always count on you

to be there when the bullets fly

I’d run across the river just to hold you tonight

You had eleven minutes to grab what’s most important in your life and get the fuck out, and as you hung out in the In N Out parking lot trying to figure out where you and your animals should spend the night, a jeep pulled up next to you with the stereo blaring. You were so confused. The song which you had been playing on repeat for days, maybe weeks was coming from the radio in the Jeep. You looked at the driver and passengers, young cowboys not more than 22, and why where they listening to this song, it’s from 2017, and now? When this song has meant everything to you?

The Jeep drove away and you were still confused as to whether that had really happened. You took it as a sign that everything would be alright.

You spent the night at a co-worker’s who took you and your animals in, you tossed and turned wondering the fate of your house. By morning evacuation orders had been lifted and the wind had taken the fire away from your house. You were then convinced the song had been a prayer, sending the wind northeast, exactly away from your house.

Well, my hart is sweating bullets

From the circles, it has raced

Like a little feathered Indian

Calling out the clouds for rain

A casual match in a very dry field

My mother hadn’t forgotten. So when I showed up with my animals in the middle of the night, having driven ten hours to get away from the fire, she didn’t question it. She said, “fire has always been your biggest fear.”

And it’s not just that one thing which makes a fire burn in such a catastrophic way, just how it wasn’t just that one thing which sent me running. It’s an accumulation of circumstances, and at that moment, I, too, was that dry terrain with high winds and low humidity through land which hadn’t burned in centuries, just waiting for one asshole to burn it all to hell. In my case, I am always that asshole.

But all things eventually shift and come to an end, even historic fires which can’t be controlled. And the ashes will make for fertilizer and everything will one day come back. So after 7 days and 6 nights, I drove back home towards the fire which still seems unending. I drove through an evacuated Lassen National Park with smoke filling my lungs even with all the windows closed, the sun, a blinding red dot in the sky amidst the pines still standing. While I was gone, the seeds from my bird feeder grew two big sunflowers as if to say, ‘we’ve been waiting for you.’

I got home, unpacked and was back to fine. The dogs were back to chasing quail and the cat to chasing frogs.

And who by fire

Just last week, I was on the 6:30 news interviewed on what the effects of wildfire smoke are on birds in Northern California, then the Park Fire broke and I’m a hot mess. Watching everyone around me get evacuated, losing their homes is too much to bare. To see those trees I’ve birded and owled at go up in flames breaks my heart to no end. And I haven’t even began to unpack what I’m feeling for my ex-lover, who is most likely at the fire. I can’t allow myself to think about him. Maybe I’m feeling my house’s pain of when it burned to the ground six years ago exactly in the Carr Fire, or maybe I can’t stop crying because I know what the Park Fire means for me: I’m going to have to move. And who by fire is going to buy a house in Fire Country after this, and who by water will be able to afford the insurance in Fire Country after this. I can’t. And because I’m a hot mess and I can’t stop crying and I’ve had a headache for three days from the smoke, I’m leaving for some days. I’m going to pack the car up, load up my animals and head to Vegas with my family.

I’m sad that I won’t be here for my birds, but right now I need to get right and I cannot be here right now. Maybe then will I be able to decide what to do with my life next. The Park Fire has changed everything.

Horse Intervention

Maybe it was the horses, or the California race tracks, the passion for the sport and maybe even the young love. But something about this 20-year old, cheesy series I stumbled upon in the middle of a sleepless night, has me missing my old life like nothing has. I guess I never realized how many memories I have of going to the track. And for years, Del Mar was a summer tradition. Back then I had friends, I had a life. And now this show has made me wonder how much longer I can stay here. His name was Wildfire no less. When I finished the show with its long 4 seasons, I couldn’t get out of bed for an entire day and replayed it all over again. I wanted the thrill of the track and the young love all over again. I felt so off, so awful, so alone. I wanted to cry, but couldn’t and the only thing which brought me calm was watching the birds in the front yard. There were families of quail with their little ones. A family of Goldfinches and several Western Bluebirds. The poor birds were panting with their beaks open. The three-digit heat won’t stop. And then at the bird bath I saw them!! The two Western Bluebird fledglings which were born in one of the nesting boxes. The only two which survived out of 4 nesting attempts and 20 eggs. It was good to see they were alive and had stuck around and were cooling off in the water I put out for the birds everyday. ‘Where did I go so wrong’ I wondered. Then I thought of Isabel Archer and perhaps that book is to blame for the way I turned out. Whether it was or it wasn’t, it’s too late now, I ain’t about to go straight.

Sure, Horse is my spirit animal, but I never thought in a million years that it would be the memory of the horse races which would make me question just what the hell I’m doing here. In my Shamanistic Journeys it is Horse who carries me on his back out of bad situations. I can feel him galloping under me as he takes me away. Maybe this Horse intervention is no different than the ones I’ve had in the other realms. Except here, it is thoroughbreds we’re talking about.

Bird’s Eye View

With the sun beating down so early the moon was still showing and with the faint smell of smoke from the Veterans Fire, the acrobats dangled from the Sundial Bridge. The Turkey Vultures, curious, hovered over them while the cliff swallows panicked. It is nesting season for them and their homes are under the bridge, of course they would. The irony in this is that the danglers’ routine was called “Flocks,” paying homage to migrating swallows along the Pacific Flyway . And like the swallows, this group performs up and down the entire length of the Pacific Flyway having performed in Chile last. Everyone wants to be a bird. I don’t. Their chances of survival are slim to none. And they’re not as free as they seem, their biological clocks dictate their actions entirely.

I sent my father a video and he said, “they kind of remind me of Los Voladores de Papantla.” My father has seen the ancient Mesoamerican ritual performed dozens of times being from Veracruz.

“Not nearly as impressive as los voladores” I replied. I have never seen the ritual in person, just on tv and maybe a modified version of the ritual somewhere, I can’t be sure. When you get older, you have a hard time remembering what was real, dreamed or imagined. I wonder what it feels like to freefall like that.

The mention of the Pacific Flyway and the smell of smoke reminded me of my secret lover of a thousand years. I wondered if he had even noticed I disappeared all those months ago. “I disappeared.” I like the sound of that. I sighed and mentally sang the Deer Tick song.

If you’re running away, I’m looking for you.

And if you’ve lost your way, I’m seeing you through.

But he would never. Not look for me nor see me through a thing. He was a shitty lover to me, and an even shittier friend. I have no doubt at all that he cared for me deeply after so many years, but I guess I’m just that scary. The other day in a movie I heard someone say, “sometimes the thing you want the most is also the scariest.”

Maybe that’s what happened with him, and his fear won. I guess I’ll never know. Know what prompted the lies of love and forever friendship. I didn’t need those lies all those years to stick around, I was never looking for a husband. Alas, my love is for the birds. Then I mentally sang the Gregory Isaac lyrics while I walked to my car, to go home away from the heat and the smoke, and to feed the bouquet of hummingbirds which hang in my yard around the feeders. Did you know that hummingbirds don’t mate for life, and Ruby-throated hummers migrate alone? I think I’m all hummingbird.

You’re a ghost to me,

I’m a ghost to you, bird’s eye view San Luis.

Magical Animal Husbandry

For an entire week he blocked traffic going both ways. Everyone already late for work, we exited our cars to lure him over to one of us, but every time we tried, he’d run closer to Highway 299, the two lane windy road which is the only way to Eureka from here. I was finally able to get him off the road and into my car with the help of a handsome farmer, treats and the leash I always carry for just these occasions. No one knew whose dog he was and of course, he had no tags to go with his collar so I took him home.

I called my dad who happened to be visiting , “Dad, I’m coming back with a big Huskey I kept from crossing 299, I am already so late for work, can you please close the farm gate after I leave and get him water and food while you make signs and post them around?” I felt bad for roping dad into my animal drama. Here, cuando no es a bear going through the trash or dead on the road, it’s my foxes eating the neighbor’s chickens, or Brown-headed Crow birds stalking my birds’ nests so they can leave their eggs for them to foster, or the Red-shoulder hawks circling my cat in the backyard. Then, of course, there is the daily hummingbird fights because my resident Anna’s hummingbird, Fearless, is a territorial son of a bitch. When two Rufous Hummers came last month, I hoped they’d fuck up Fearless for being an asshole. The Rufous are known to be the more aggressive of the hummingbirds, but they eventually left and Fearless reclaimed his throne at the feeder. And now there was this rando suicidal dog making me late for work. Dad closed the gate behind me and went in to get the dog water. When dad came out, the dog was gone. Not knowing we were preparing for this incident, dad and I had just patched up any holes to the property so how had he gotten out?

“Maybe he wasn’t real,” Dear Chicago said nailing what I had already thought.

” I thought of that too, but I have the pictures and dad to corroborate my story.”

The next morning on my way to work, there stood the dog in the middle of the road again. Same exact scenario. This time he recognized me so he came to me right away and got in my car. And again, no one knew who the dog belonged to. We did it all over again, in the same order but with no longer a sense of urgency. And like yesterday’s story, the dog got out of the fenced property somehow.

On the third day, It happened all again.

On the fourth day, I left for work early to throw off the narrative of this shapeshifter. You see, when you get caught in a magical circle of sorts, you have to do something different to break the spell. Leaving for work early did it and I thought that had been the last of the dog.

Three days later, dad and I took on the arduous project of staining 300 feet of fence. As we worked in the 95 degree weather, I looked up and there he was at the gate waiting to be let in. I screamed, “dad, look who’s here! He knows how to get back!” We named him Jax.

We opened the gate to let him in, and closed it again so the dogs wouldn’t get out. Jax played with my dogs for a few hours, ate and drank. I kept my eye on him at all times because dammit, I wanted to know how he was getting out. He eventually got bored and he very casually walked over to the heavy closed metal farm gate, he pushed it open with his muzzle just enough to slip out and it closed back up behind him. He walked away down the long dirt road not ever looking back. I haven’t seen Jax since.

Fear of Fire

A red-shoulder hawk screeching woke me at noon. It is breeding time after all. I only ever hear two hawks at a time, but there’s three. I’ve seen them circling the yard. Probably two males courting the female. I checked my phone and I had a text from my secret lover of a thousand years. I texted back, “I just woke up. I always have the same dream. We’re at the same party and you ignore me. “

“Never!!!!” He replies.

If I have repeated dreams that you ignore me, and I tell you, why are you not listening to what I’m saying. Most days, I don’t know what to do with him or about him. Then I tell myself I don’t need to know or worry what I’m doing about him, I will do nothing, because this is nothing but a repetitive bad dream that will someday end. The other repetitive dream I have is the one where I text him that I can’t talk to him again because I have decided to take on a serious lover. I don’t even want a serious lover, or any lover at all, but what I want is to be cruel, to make the point that I will not be here forever.

“You don’t need to help me burn my fallen trees anymore, I have someone who can help me in earnest now. Someone who won’t ignore me if we’re at the same party.”

I think he thinks I’m a robot with no feelings, needs or wants. I wish I was, but I’m not, and I need someone to help me burn because I am terrified of fire.