The Owl I Can Never Forget

As far back as I could remember, I was surrounded by trees. Of course, not just trees, that would

drive me wild but with the trees there was farmland, wildlife, the hoots and hollers of owls, coyotes and

wolves, a serenity that could not be found anywhere else. I was comfortable there and it was what I was

used to, and most days, I could not imagine ever moving away from that. There were days when I would

picture how it would be living away from this, and for a time I did leave - I was not sure if I would ever

come back, that I would ever get over what happened. When I left, I wanted to find the exact opposite

of what I knew, and boy, did I ever dive in head first.

When I was a child, I was obsessed with owls – to the point that every birthday, Christmas and

just because gift had something to do with them. It could have been the beauty of the birds, the fierce

way they hunted and lived, or how cute they were when they were babies. All I know is that they were a

huge part of my childhood – and subsequently, a huge part of why I left. When I was 19, I was out

walking in the evening as I normally did. I would wander the woods behind my house following animal

trails and calls, investigating every nook and cranny. That night I must have startled the bird – and for it

to have not noticed me, it must have been very hungry and very distracted. The largest barn owl I had

ever seen exploded towards me, catching my cheek with its talons, just missing my left eye. I screamed

and beat at it and it took the longest thirty seconds of my life to get this bird away from me. One hand

pressed to my torn face, the other outstretched to keep my balance, I stumbled home as fast as I could,

calling for my parents in a panic. When they saw me, I swear everything went dark.

Unsurprisingly, I blacked out from the shock and the first thing my parents saw amongst my

screaming was my collapsing body. Now when I think back, I have snippets of memories – my mom

dropping the laundry basket she had, running faster than I had ever seen, my dad’s face in the window

and in the next moment above mine, calling my name. Flashes of lights from the headlights as we drove

to the hospital, that weird smell when you first enter the waiting room. All in all, it’s not much, and truth

be told I'm glad I do not remember more. From what my parents say, the details are more than I want.

I spent three days in the hospital. I needed stitches, that was a given, but they also had to do

them delicately so I didn’t turn in to Frankenstein’s monster. They also were worried about possible

infection because of the owl’s talons, and possible contaminants. Once I was home, we had to worry

about cleaning my wounds and making sure they were healing well. This took a few weeks and although

my siblings meant well trying to make me laugh, any and all movements of my face hurt badly enough

that every one of my family members saw me cry on multiple occasions. Before this, only my parents

had ever, so the owl did worse things than just scar my face. Thankfully, no one gave me a get well soon

owl stuffy.

At the time of the accident, it was summer. I had graduated over a year ago, and was still trying

to decide what to do with my life. I had finally decided I was going to try the big city and this accident

just gave me the extra push to go a little further, and a little bigger than I had originally planned. Since

the accident, I had not gone into the woods once, and kept my walks within the confines of the yard.

Logically, I knew that it would likely never happen again but the other part of me wondered since it

happened once, why couldn’t it happen again? Regardless, the woods weren’t as comforting as they

once had been. Through the healing, I had to get used to seeing the deep rakes across my cheek and it

took a few weeks before I could even fully look at them, at my new face. I was more self-conscious than

ever before and, I was looking forward to the move even more now. Everyone in my town knew what

had happened, and as such, there was way too much pity in their eyes for me. Moms would clutch their

daughters, thanking the lords that it didn’t happen to their perfect girls while dads would elbow their

sons and reminisce about how ‘oh she sure was a pretty thing, before her face got messed up.’ All in all,

moving day couldn’t come soon enough.

When I first saw my new apartment, at first, I was shocked. It was smaller than expected, and I

had been led to believe that it had a balcony – turns out that balcony was just a window that opened up

to the fire escape staircase. A vast difference from what I was used to, but I took a deep steadying

breath, and reminded myself this was what I wanted. I wanted away from the woods, from the owls,

from the terror, and I got what I wanted.

Looking back, that apartment gave me a lot of firsts, and experiences I would not have had if I

hadn’t left home. First love, and first heartbreak; first adult job, and the first time where I had no safety

net. My family wasn’t right there to pick me up, and I had to figure it out on my own. Luckily, I managed

but there were definitely days where I felt like I was a failure. What took the longest to get used to was

the constant noise – keep in mind I came from secluded, rural home. Even when the city was quiet it

was never fully silent. Night time, as a result, was my favourite time of day, when I felt closest to home.

The smell was another thing to get used to. Car exhaust, pollution, fast food, other people, all these

smells swirled and mixed, and some stayed for days while others were fleeting moments. Every day was

something new to get used to, and after a few weeks I found myself wishing for the normalcy of my

childhood home. While the homesickness ebbed and flowed, I kept moving each day. I went to my job at

a local greenhouse each day – the closest to the wild I had found – and distracted myself with planting,

and weeding, and watering, helping customers decide which flower they wanted on their step, the

hordes of people my age flocking to the store on shipment days. I never realized how big houseplants

were until I left home, people are obsessed. From work I would come straight home, scrounge a meal of

whatever was left in the fridge, and sit on my fire escape/luxury balcony, and wish for home.

I fell into a routine and it kept the homesickness at bay just enough so that I could have new

experiences, and have a bit of normalcy. It never went away and I found myself watching out my

window each night for a sign to stay, something to keep me from running back to what I knew. At this

point, I had fallen in and out of love, in the midst of the heavy grief stage of a breakup, and I was

desperately hoping for something to hold onto. I was still plugging away at the greenhouse, getting lost

in the perfectly curated wilderness inside, dealing with the intricacies of human interaction.

Finally, a year into being in the big city and on the other side of heartbreak I got what I wanted

in a way I didn’t know I needed. I was sitting on the windowsill, legs dangling over the fire escape

landing, just staring at the sky looking for stars amidst the light pollution. I saw movement and a flutter

to the corner of my eye and to my utter shock – a barn owl. Sitting on a lamp post nearby, settled and

staring right at me. My hand flew to my cheek, feeling the raised skin caused by a bird just like this one.

We stared at each other for a long time before it flew off, silent into the night. My heart was pounding

but not in the fear I had begun to associate with owls, but with the excitement, and optimism of a new

found respect and understanding. I sat there for the rest of the night just looking for that owl, but it

never came back, and I never saw it again. I knew that night that I had finally come to terms with my

accident, and that my love of owls had never left – it was just traumatized and hidden, behind a

protective layer of fear. I laughed quietly to myself and pulled myself back into my apartment. I looked

out one more time to see if maybe the owl had returned, but it was silent – for the first time, the city

was quiet.