We Meet Again, Old Friend

As I wander through the wet, coastal rainforest filled with the possibility that morning brings -I hear you call my name.

Taking my usual path along the emerald lagoon then through the wet, brushy boardwalk trail, I hear the frilly chipmunks chatter as I listen for you.

I pass a sign featuring some local flora and fauna that reads “Welcome to the Edge” and wonder - what if this really is the edge - the edge of my world and the start of yours. From this point on, I’ve stepped into your realm. It doesn’t feel so far fetched in my heart.

I arrive at the fork where two of the oldest Red Cedars tower proudly twenty stories high. They mark the trailheads of four paths that wind into this old growth forest in the heart of the city.

The older Red Cedar to my right houses a family of Eagles and a Pileated Woodpecker. I sometimes see them on my morning walks as they chatter and share updates on the locals amongst themselves.

The Cedar to my left is lonely and bare, but even more beautiful in its simple silhouette.

I pause, looking up to them for a moment, asking for answers as I always do - then take the path to my left, turning towards the ocean instead of back to the Lagoon.

A quiet but certain part of me knows we will meet, again. Just like yesterday.

I float down the narrow gravel trail, eyes eagerly searching the green jigsaw for signs of you.

Western Hemlock, Sitka Spruce; the Cottonwoods are turning red.

I hear the Eagles chirping overhead, calling to each other - I picture them in their nest, twenty stories above, watching over us from the now distant fork.

I slow my pace as my eyes settle on a new growth. Sand and saffron coloured mushrooms tumbling out of a decaying log, their slimy caps wavey, as if they dance when no one is watching.

Dance for me? I make a silent wish that isn’t granted, even on the edge.

Turkey tail? Laccaria? Beautiful…

And that’s when I feel eyes on me.

I dart my head from side to side sensing the gaze, danger?

It’s a fair thought because this lush forest exists impossibly on the edge of a city with some of the worst desperation and poverty in the country. Mental health tragedies, those lost to addiction, a bleeding heart in the center of the city that had leached it’s way into every corner. That people never talk about enough.

My eyes scan the trees for a local resident emerging from their blue-tarped-turmoil; but they landed on you.

Hello again, you.

The air leaves my chest as we lock eyes again - this time, closer than ever before.

I see your talons gently massaging the Cedar branch below as you slowly shift your grey and white plumage back and fourth. But your eyes never leave me.

Those eyes are as black, vast, and unknown as the universe. I think to myself.

The feeling of those eyes on me makes my heart leap - with a deep sense of eerie unknown and warm familiarity all at the same time.

Am I in Harry Potter? Seriously.

Encounters with Barred Owls are rather rare, but not unheard of.

In fact, until this year I had only see one in my ten years of walking these paths.

But when I met an echoey lady in March, everything changed.

She told me she had seen the Owls once this year and it nearly brought her to tears.

I replied confidently I would see them too. “I’m manifesting it” and that I did.

As if the Owls had been listening on that fateful day they started showing themselves to me. Meeting me more and more frequently, and coming more and more close.

It all started about a week after that conversation in March when I heard your haunting hoot from the top of a Red Cedar.

There were a few of us that day, and we all stopped dead in our tracks. That’s how powerful you are. Did you know?

You barely showed yourself that day -but I couldn’t help but shake the strangeness of the timing of events.

You showed up again later that month as I was walking, taking a phone call. You were lower in the trees this time. And we locked eyes for a while.

And I saw you again, and again, and again.

Ten times, fifteen?

Once we sat together in the forest for a while, we were off the beaten path, hidden behind branches. You, perched on a low branch; me, sitting on a decaying log.

But never like this.

Because yesterday we met to. And you introduced me to your friend.

Sweeping across the path in front of me, you had me walk down the same trail as today. It was just me, and you and then as if impossibly, another smaller Owl. The three of us exchanging glances alone in the forest.

Thank you, thank you - I though again and again.

I don’t know what it means, and from the people I’ve told they all have their own deep meaning they give.

Some say, Owls are messengers, another that they bring luck. I feel you may be an old friend, ancestor or ally, stopping by to say hello.

So hello again, old friend, and I hope we meet again soon.