The Owl

Written on June 9, 2002

In the end of August 2000, I had just returned from a disastrous field season at our archaeological dig in Turkey.  I’d been forced to leave in disgrace due to a long sequence of stupid mistakes on my part, and on the part of others around me.  Although the following year I was brought back and completely forgiven, at that moment I was devastated, fearing the reputation I had built in the field had been destroyed.

I returned to my home in downtown Buffalo, the two bedroom apartment I’d lived in for more than 3 years.  I returned to my landscaping job, and the strength-leeching, pointless relationship I’d been trying to wrench my way out of for months.  Although I’d kick him out some months before, I was still tied to him, and it was me he called when he was in trouble.  And I went.  He still had a key to my apartment, and he would come and turn up in my living room in the middle of the night when he’d been out all night on a binge. 

I wanted out.  Out of the relationship, out of that apartment, out of the city.  Within a week I had found a new apartment (the first I looked at) and discussed moving immediately with my landlord. 

The first of September I moved from my roomy downtown apartment to a small 2-bedroom apartment over a 2-car garage.  The place was perfect – still within the confines of the urban area, but surrounded by woods, with lots of space and lots of quiet.  A garage in which my car could huddle during the blasts of Buffalo snow, and a yard.

A yard.  Trees.  And the place to put in a garden of my own.  It had been a burning desire for me for some time.  I’d taken stabs at growing things at the apartment – some bulbs in the beds in the courtyard.  These were promptly killed the following spring when my landlord decided to put in a rock garden.  Some window-boxes on the roof-top terrace, with geraniums and wave petunias, vinca vines, impatiens….whatever I thought might look good.  They thrived, but I was gone during the height of the summer and had to leave others to tend them, to enjoy them. 

I settled in quickly to the new place, although my finances were severely strained.  The next few months were in some ways a nightmare, in some ways beautiful.  I started my gardens, planted out more than 200 bulbs, many of them gifts from my mom’s gardens.  And I sat back to await spring.

In October I finally broke away from the pointless relationship, with a sudden realization that I just didn’t want to be in it anymore. 

I spent a financially strapped winter, teaching a High School Latin class part time, working for a local company as a consultant, and awaiting spring – my garden, landscaping, a new start.

I changed phone numbers 3 times.   The ex kept calling, kept managing to get my number, kept showing up at my door.  Then, on New Year’s Day, he called me and threatened.  I’d never felt he was an actual physical threat before.  For the first time, he scared me.

Throughout it all, I reveled in my new home.  It was small and cramped, but it was away from the constant sirens, the revving engines, the motorcycles screaming down Delaware Ave., the thump-thump of a pimped-out car’s stereo.  I fell further and further behind in the rent, the utility companies threatened to turn off the heat and electric. I would lie in bed at night, waiting to fall asleep, dreading the next day of working a teaching job I hated, and listened to an owl outside my window.

Across the driveway from my house is an old willow tree.  In winter it resembled a broken and arthritic body, hunched over the snowy ground, an ancient woman standing guard over my life.  And in its branches, every night as I lie in my bedroom under my grandmother’s feather comforter, the owl would whoo-whoo into the night.

It was such a joy to me.  I’ve always loved owls.  We had a few on the farm when I was young, barn owls that made their nests in the oak rafters of our 100-year old barn.  However, in all that time, I’d never had the simple pleasure of listening to one call out in the night.  In Greece I saw them once in a while, even startled one out of an olive tree one day during survey work.  It flashed over my head with a nearly-silent WHOOSH, and careened off into the heavy air laden with the  drone of the cicadas.

My owl was like clockwork.  Every night, after slogging through grading, writing worksheets, brainstorming new ideas to get my uninspired students involved, and searching for the money to pay the bills, I’d finally crawl into bed disheartened and alone.  I rarely answered the phone, because it very likely was the ex, still bothering me.  And lying there, the owl would call, around 11:30 each night.

Whooo hooo! 

Such a soothing sound.  My mind would clear, and I’d drift off to sleep.  More than once I tried to spy out the bird itself, wanting to see what brought me such simply joy.  I never did, and it was bitterly cold out, so I didn’t go out to find it.  I feared the opening of the door would scare it off, anyway.  I wanted it to stay.

Winter slowly turned, and spring eventually took it’s reluctant hold of the Niagara region.  My garden began to sprout – daffodils, tulips, crocuses.  I was seeing a man named Gus, but that didn’t last long.  Wrong man.  At the end of May, I was fired from the teaching job.    Trumped up charges of fraud allowed the principal who had hated me to force me to resign.  The fact that I actually wanted to teach and hold my students accountable never sat well with him or his coddling relationship with the parents.  Latin is evidently a fluff class, which was news to me.  I continued to struggle with my finances.  Landscaping restarted and I worked that in addition to the consulting job for some weeks until they let me go too.  All the while, my owl continued to wish me goodnight with it’s eerie call.  I lived, I healed, I struggled to redefine myself after a long, trying time.

Then in late spring, perhaps around the first of June, work crews began ripping out all the trees which surrounded the properties where myself and a half dozen other people lived.  Forty years ago the area had been a dump, and our time had come for the superfund to clean up the mess.

Within 2 weeks, all the trees were gone except those immediately on our property.  I was told the pines behind my willow would go soon too, as well as the pole-building behind them.  When I left for Turkey in early July, I could see the bustle and lights of Transit road, a half-mile away over what used to be thick woods.

It ripped me apart.  My quiet haven was being ripped out of the ground. 

I spent my field season in Turkey, worked hard, had an extremely successful season, and returned to a home totally changed. 

My willow remained, but it was the only tree between me and Transit road.  Everything else was barren earth.  The backhoes and bulldozers were still hard at work.  They were digging down up to 40 feet, removing the tainted soil, and trucking in new dirt.  The plan was that nothing could ever be planted there.  Once it was clean, the area would be capped with clay, another layer of soil, and guarded indefinitely to be sure no one tampered with it, and nothing more substantial than low brush would grow. 

And my owl was gone.  I would lie in bed and listen for him, or sit outside at night, straining for some sign he was still there.  I mourned, and got on with rebuilding my life.

I’d gotten a new job, and only worked landscaping while the drug test for the new job was being processed and the paperwork was finalized.  A permanent job, something I’d not committed to before.  Always before I’d avoided permanent positions, because I wanted the freedom to finish my PhD, to travel to Turkey for field work every year.  I realized I had to fix my financial situation before I could do anything else.

I started my new job on September 4, 2001.  On September 10^th I met a man, and shortly thereafter fell in love.  On September 11^th, everyone’s world was shattered by terror.  I lived, I worked, I began to dig my way out of my financial hole. 

By January I was able to start saving money, to pay off old debts.  I loved a good man who wanted to take care of me.  My life felt like it was finally coming under control again.

Then, in mid-march of 2002, I lie in bed one early morning, awake before my alarm, and heard a quiet sound from outside.

Whooo-hooo!

For a split second, my heart stopped.  I lie and waited, hoping I hadn’t mistaken a pre-dawn morning-dove for something else. 

Then it came again…

Whoo hoo!

A grin split my face from ear to ear, and I wanted to get up and dance with joy.  He was back, if only for a moment, and I lie and listen to him until I had to get up for work.  I glided through the morning, happier than I’d remembered being in a long time.

I’ve not heard him since.  I don’t really mind.  I know he’s still around, and I listen for him.  But he’s still alive, still out there stalking the night.  He brought me a small moment of joy when my life was in tatters around me.  I almost felt like he came back to check on me, to see if I was well, and when he saw I was, he felt he could move on.  He is now probably in the woods on the far side of the road, too far away from my house for me to hear him.  There he will find game, and the shadows in which he can hide.

I wish him well.