The Night Owl Returns

It was already dark when we finished carrying up the last boxes up the stairs. We set up a picnic on a makeshift table of two chairs and a tablecloth, popped a cork and toasted to the new home. Getting this place seemed miraculous for two artists, especially at the onset of the pandemic. We could finally have a place to compose and play music at all hours, paint, write, dance ..and have fabulous dinner parties with the Bohemian royalty when this is all over.

The house looked out to a quiet street with views of a fenced water reservoir and luxuriously open sky in comparison to the other flats we rented. As we made out the silhouettes of Lone Mountain and the Twin Peaks through the paned front windows, a large barn owl soared past slowly, as if in a dream. Awestruck by its glorious movement, white glow, silent wings and round eyes, we felt its appearance that night was a mystical sign of a new beginning.

The first and most weighty item moved into the house was a 1906 Steinway. My first grand piano after playing concerts for 30 years! Although only a loan from a pianist friend, it fit in front of the windows perfectly and owned the living room without overwhelming the space. Shortly after, beds and desks appeared, and all of his belongings added up to full stacks in every room, with more to sort in the garage for the next year. His artfulness and artwork added beauty to all spaces, but the chaos and flurry left me confounded and crowded. I moved in the bed and clothes and kept my studio there, but most of my work and belongings and memories were stored at my charmingly run-down place. It was becoming harder to let it go since I had treasured peace and quiet there, and I successfully managed to fend off a parasitic, psychotic renter. Mostly, the overwhelming nature of moving so many objects and losing my little corner of the world came over me. The constrictions of the lockdown created fear of isolation for many, but for me it was freedom - from the noise, from obligations to anything, from choosing.

We still loved and danced many nights, created dinner parties for two or three, drank our best wines, and stayed up until the morning hours. Time had stopped for a while and it was beautiful.

It would become impossible to afford and sustain this dream. Once the fires started and fists tightened, all began to collapse. Friends and family were evacuating, hospitals were filling up, and we had to leave to the coast just to be able to breathe. Yet we still kept our safe haven.

He was agitated, behaving as if I wasn’t really there, even when present. Soon the tensions began, the questions, the jabs. I retreated. I asked only for time to compose, and to love more in case all was to end soon. It became impossible to sleep most of the night with all the anxiety. In the morning I fell into sleep and began dreaming deeply, traveling through past, present and future.

Four of our closest, and many others started leaving us over the course of a year. Covid aimed for the oldest and kindest people we knew. We were losing our teachers, the legacy of the old world without having a chance to say goodbye and thank them. Would we have to carry the knowledge forward? Would there be a chance?

Many candles burned, and nights got longer until we could start coming out again. Music, poetry, wine and laughter came back, reminding us of our champagne days. We noticed that our distance was greater, and we no longer sat aside one another, or drove together to these gatherings. We were still alive! Being so lucky, we kept moving onward, as if to grasp the last moments of everything life could reveal.

Then, one morning, I got the news. Our Jack was gone, just one week after he recited his marvelous poem at our concert. He didn’t suffer, but we knew why. I couldn’t find a way to utter the news, subconsciously thinking I somehow was at fault. None of us could accept this loss, and we mourned for months for the loss of our beloved friend and tremendous poet. Hearts dropped, others retreated, and soon after my love also became ill. We both bore guilt, but we say that not only did he contract it from him, but he shared the illness with Jack in a show of comradely love!

One month later there were signs of recovery, but the fatigue and the fog stayed. Strange pains and weakness persisted. The change was quite evident to me. His anger took over where the words and smiles once lived. Loneliness lived with us for some time, but we were grateful that he survived - and that we were still together, albeit changed.

The Barn Owl has been given many names throughout its varied habitats: the Banshee, the Billy-wise, the Church Owl, the Death Owl, the Farmer’s Friend, the Ghost Owl, the Hobgoblin, the Jenny Howlet, the Screech Owl, and the Night Owl. It has been known to be a sign of wisdom in the world of Athena, in others, an omen of death. It remains a symbol of transformation and higher understanding because it can see in the dark. Some Native American tribes believed the barn owl to be a guardian or an oracle, while others believed it to be a sign of death or sickness as a punishment.

The Barn Owl’s seemingly slow flight in comparison to other birds of prey is due to their disproportionately large wingspan in comparison to their body size. It allows the hunter to fly closer to the ground where prey can be found, and its gift of superb hearing aids its detection of movement when prey is under snow or cover.

I always thought of Jack as a hawk, able to soar above the mundane, elegantly flying and powerfully diving with his words into the conscious world. In a warmly commanding voice, he insisted I write music about my ancestor Elijah, just after I had discovered his story! Now I think of him as that Owl, able to see the darkness, through us, with his large eyes and wisdom vision. He would fly in to a scene and detect any social movement, interesting music, beauty, intelligent women, poetry, and ideas, and gather them all up, with us, in his wings. Our darkness and littleness were exposed by his mind’s eye, yet he illuminated our light further with his ideas behind us. We still wait up some nights remembering his voice booming, reciting by memory Keats and Rilke. Then he would begin toe-dusting like an angry Owl - growling, swaying his head and outstretching his large hands as if they were wings, all in defense of beauty, justice and freedom!

Six months pass and we still move as wanderers. We returned home recently from another gathering with too many drinks and too few ideas. We didn’t know if we were happy again, or just habitually together. Then he pushed it too far and suddenly slipped. Witnessing the fall from the door down those stairs nearly broke his neck, and my heart with it. The fall appeared as if he had slipped away forever. I hid my anguish because I couldn’t let him know how afraid I was, both of him being hurt and the eruption of anger that followed for weeks. Looking into this darkness has been akin to entering another layer of Dante’s world. The intensity is too much to bear, yet I can’t leave. How could we let this happen and not speak of it? Even when silent, our truth will be revealed. If the heart and the body disagree, we have no recourse but remain silent and listen. Wisdom.

Revealing ourselves without guile as the Poet did is nearly impossible, having used our nests as the haven for our secrets. Alba and Ater, our light and dark: are they to be equally embraced, reviled, feared? Is this only for our eyes in the dark of homes? The latest Plague has shed a light on these shadows. Yet, knowing the landscape in the dark is when the nocturnal ones are most successful.

The Owl returned again this winter. That is why I will be writing the Opera when you are resting, my love.