The Book Excerpt

After almost four years, The Animal Book is finally in print!
Here's what the editors have to say about my essay...

“…Those of us who have shared our lives with animals may recall a time when we ‘lost our eyes’ and thus attained a fuller vision. Perhaps one day it will dawn on us that our dog finds us difficult to communicate with—that the problem was ours—instead of vice versa; we might have realized suddenly what our horse has been telling us all along about the field we tried to force him through. Melanie Dylan Fox has loaned her eyes in this way to the black bears of Sequoia National Park. In ‘Ursus Americanus: The Idea of a Bear,’ Fox examines her responsibility to the bears she has come to know in their trespassed habitat. Like Steeves and other contributors to this volume, she also ponders the etymological and semantic quandaries that accrue to us when we attempt to speak about such knowledge. We must violate ‘traditional grammatical rules’: each bear for example, is a ‘he,’ a ‘she,’ a ‘who’ with an individual temperament, not an ‘it’ or a ‘that’ with merely a species identity.

In the tradition of Herman Melville in Moby-Dick, and more recently, of Loren Eiseley and Barry Lopez, Fox looks at animals through the dual lenses of science and myth. Like Eiseley in the title essay of The Star Thrower, or Lopez in Of Wolves and Men, Fox seems hopeful that some verbal concatenation of empirical detail and mystical insight might inspire the reader’s own exploration and discovery. Her cross-species, social relationship with bears has changed her forever, and the experience she describes is available to all who expand their conceptions of what is possible.”

Hmm. My essay contains empirical detail and mystical insight. Cool.

While I'm on the Subject

Excerpt from the still-unfinished hawk essay:

Lengthening days of summer heat and stillness now. The tree that houses my hawks is exploding with green and lush leaves. I spend as much time as I can spare every day observing them. Kneeling in front of an open third-floor window, heavy binoculars in hand, I focus and refocus the lens, following their movements. The hawks are present in these moments, still visible if I look closely, but will soon be completely hidden beneath a twisted tangle of dense, leafy branches.

The female seems about two feet long, the feathers of her back blurring from auburn to intricate patterns in shades of cinnamon, her underbelly a pale, milky vanilla-white encircled by a dark band. She holds herself with a palpable air of dignity and grace. The male is noticeably smaller, his colors darker, more monochromatic, less vibrant, though still impressive. His underbelly is beige, not pure white, and his face, head and beak are a deep brown so mottled it’s almost impossible to tell where his features begin and end. The tails of juvenile hawks are grayish-brown and won’t begin changing till the bird’s second year; these hawks flaunt tails of adulthood’s familiar russet red shade. The hawks have exaggerated, bony brow ridges which shade the large black eyes from direct sunlight. They appear angry, face locked in a perpetual scowl, eyes protruding above the cere, the soft, mustard-yellow skin where the beak begins. If I notice them in the trees from my perch near the window, they must certainly notice me, with vision eight times more accurate and powerful than mine.

Red-tails are masters of flight, using updrafts and thermals in the air to their advantage. The distinctive aerial behavior is used to protect territory—which can be up to two square miles—and for elaborate courtship rituals during which they swoop up and down and try to touch one another with their talons. They can have a wingspread of 43-56 inches, which doesn’t surprise me. When they patrol their territory, they soar and dive, in an undulating orchestration, wings outstretched and reaching, almost touching the sky. Watching them I hold my breath and believe that I too could take flight so effortlessly and naturally if I tried.

I shift my weight to my other knee and refocus the binoculars. I see a flash of white and am startled to be looking into the faces of two baby hawks, something I’ve been hoping to see. They hardly look real, completely white and covered in fluffy down. I want to reach out my hand and feel their plush softness. I am certain I saw stuffed animals in their likeness the last time I visited the gift shop at the Pittsburgh Zoo. The chicks’ eyes are already large and noticeable and seem much too big for their heads, not yet forming the same scowl as the ones their parents wear proudly. They move awkwardly, bobbing their heads up out of the nest, hesitating, standing, falling down clumsily. I guess them to be only a few weeks old, and they will remain in the nest for another month before they fledge. The male stands right outside the nest, looking for his mate to return with prey to feed the chicks. I remain silent and unmoved, waiting and hoping for the chance to witness this act of mutual parenting.

I detail everything I notice about the hawks in a green spiral notebook, so I won’t forget. Later, I will turn the observations into something larger, something tangible, perhaps an essay. It is these details that will breathe life into the prose on the page.

Someone once told me that God was to be found in the details. I don’t know if I believe this, but I do know that noticing the details allows one to understand the world in unexpected ways. It will be the details that make a difference.

End excerpt:
I am one of those people who pay attention to everything, looking for signs, portents all around. things that eventually refuse to be ignored.

The Sky is Falling

Walking home from the bus stop last evening—for the first time I really and truly have to admit to myself, shivering in the near-darkness, that winter has very nearly arrived—it happened again. Same, dense rustle of feathers, I look upward to the telephone pole, see the birds (two this time) drop like heavy, smooth river stones, straight to the street, thudding to the hard concrete into a tangled sprawl of feathers less than two feet from me.

Only this time, it isn't a dying, juvenile robin. This time, it's one of my hawks, one of the red-tails that nest each season in the tall tall tree across the street from my home, and a dark greyish pigeon. I can only guess that, despite all the hawk's fluid grace when flying, the two birds have somehow collided mid-air, sent them both stunned to the ground. from the vivid coloring, I guess it to be the adult female, not the darker male and not one of the pair's young. I'm certain it's the bird I've watched year after year. And all I know is that she's standing close enough for me to reach out and touch her. That and this incident has just left me utterly and completely startled.

I see cars coming in either direction; I must do something. So I do something really stupid, and walk partway into the street, approach the hawk, dangerously close. I stand so that the cars have to go around me. A year ago, M. and I did this very same thing, helping a snake that had been awakened by the unseasonably warm October weather, cross the street safely.

A couple in a silver sedan slow, roll down the passenger window, stare at the birds still on the ground. The hawk has stood, but she clearly is disoriented. And the pigeon, well, it's safe to say the pigeon has not survived, either the collison or the fall.

The cars pass, the hawk attempts flight. She makes it to the other side of the street, to a front porch. Her wing is bent awkwardly, clearly in a twisted position that isn't quite right. We stare at one another with blinking eyes for many minutes, the human-animal distance between us breathtakingly small. Her beauty, which i can finally see in detail for the first time, brings tears to my eyes. I watch and wait.

More moments pass. She turns and takes flight, erratic and obviously strained, makes it to the roof of a two-story apartment building. In this instant, I have a helpless, but inevitable, feeling that I can do nothing but trust. I will see her again next spring.

Where My Head is Today

A moving poem by one of my favorite poets, ever, Pattiann Rogers (linked because it is loooong).

A Breeze Tentatively Comes from Somewhere

Reflecting on this seasonal ending, so close that I hold it carefully in the crook of my arm, tending it, willing it to remain, constant and steadfast. My friend E., who is from eastern Washington state, told me that when he was a little boy, he took the train, alone, to the East Coast to visit relatives. It was summer, and his strongest memory of the trip was that he saw fireflies for the very first time (fireflies are perhaps the one thing in the natural world I miss most when I live out west). He was so enchanted that he, like most children do, collected as many as he could in an empty jelly jar, holes poked carefully in the lid. He planned to release them in his own natural environment, so that each summer he would have fireflies all through the summertime. But the natural world is good about knowing what belongs and what doesn't. And the fireflies did not survive the several-day journey. I believe he still hasn't fully recovered from that loss. Nor will I, from the loss of this season of warmth. However temporary.

Reflecting on metaphorical endings. I was reminded recently that in many belief systems, September is considered a beginning, a new year to replace the old. A time when we are asked to reconsider our lives and Selves, to consider what belongs and what no longer fits. In January, the more familiar and traditional beginning, both our spirits and the world are exhausted, spent, filled with darkness and cold. How much more lovely and practical then, to make changes and revisions when there is still some lingering strength, some hint of Light.

Today, a murmured prayer to the Goddess of That Which Is No Longer Useful. to make the right choices.

Tessa, A Million Apologies

I struggle to find the right words.

I am sorry that you were not given a chance, a real chance, to find the loving, attentive home that you desired, that you deserved.

I am sorry that your greatest fault was loving people too much.

I am sorry that this world failed you.

I am sorry that you will never be able to be the Tessa you could have been.

I am sorry that i was not able to save you. I tried sweet girl, I really did. I should have tried harder. Should have been more insistent.

Most of all, I am sorry that others were not willing to do every damn thing in their human power to help you.

And, I am sorry I did not get to say goodbye.

I will miss your beautiful toothy grin, your boundless energy, the way you sat immediately at my feet for attention, even though you really just wanted to leap onto me and smother me with sloppy doggle kisses, your astonishing ability to love.

I grieve for you as if you were one of my own.

Late for Work This Morning Because...

I am unlocking my car door, when above me on the roof I hear a loud rustling. Ilook up to see a bird come sailing erratically off the second story and land, hard, into the tree just beside the car. The branch shakes for a split second, and then the bird falls, even harder, straight into the street below. On its back, almost motionless, feet twitching slightly, I know there is something terribly wrong with it. Instantly I know that it is dying. I cannot just leave it there in the street to be run over by a car, to die an undignified death (though it occurs to me now that perhaps that may have been the more humane thing to do, not painless, but likely swift). I cannot simply stand there and watch it happen. By this time, I am sobbing.

I scream for J. to come outside. We grab last night's pizza box, and while making impatient morning drivers wait, slide the bird onto it and carry it to the side of the house, lay it gently in the grass. It doesn't flinch, doesn't struggle. That it does nothing at all, doesn't resist, is almost more than I can bear. I stand there for too long watching it in the overgrown grass and weeds, eyes fluttering open and closed, breath shallow and labored. Quite large, but it is still a very young robin. It occurs to me that it will never see the soft, downy feathers on its chest give way to that deep, familiar, brick red color. I wonder if those same downy feathers I've been finding on the porch for the past few days were a warning, a sign leading up to this moment.

I am unable to pull myself together, spend the drive to work still crying, haunted by the image of that poor little trembling bird. My heart aches in a deep and twisty way. It is an ache I seem to feel frequently, for animals, but rarely for people. Only for a select few.

When I come home, I will stand in the darkness, bury the bird, say goodbye or something like it. The county health department does not want or need to know about dead robins, apparently. Only crows, owls, jays, and hawks. but that doesn't mean this little life doesn't matter.

As I often do, I wonder if this happens to other people, if it is 'normal' to feel this profound empathy for non-human creatures. Something so seemingly small as this morning, or something I simply see on television (the recent PBS show on hippos comes to mind), affects me deeply, evokes in me emotions that are constantly surprising, their strength, overwhelming and confusing. I have not always been this way, and I cannot help but wonder when this happened, when I became like this. More importantly, I am never sure exactly what to make of it when it happens. Seems like I need to do something, but I'm never sure what.

Duck!

Well, I've been wondering which 14 states are going to be affected by The Great Bug Awakening . No signs yet, but it appears that I have something to look forward to. For some reason, this part is highly amusing:

According to Kritsky, the best time to eat a cicada is just after they break open their youthful skin. "When you eat them when they're soft and mushy, when they come out of their skin, they taste like cold, canned asparagus," he said.

Shall We Agree That Just This Once

Although the skies are heavy and dark today, the air is only lightness and warmth. I am barefoot in a floaty spring skirt (yes, on 'casual Friday'), impatient, ever impatient for summer. So close I can almost taste, teasing, lingering, on my tongue, just for today. Summer: the only time of year that really matters to me. I said last night (as I do again, and again, and again), that I still dream of a place that is filled with endless summer. I love the metaphorical possibilities of this time of year, the hopeful promise and possibility for changing what one once was into something else entirely. Longing for the perennial shedding of myself, both literal and emotional, the casting aside of everything that binds, contains, and no longer belongs in and of my world. The boundless, faithful leap into the comforting unknown. In my mind, that unknown is always a day like the summer Solstice, a day of perfect balance and light. A memory: some useless French lit class, Bloomington, Ballantine Hall, Spring, 1991. In a sudden fit and without warning, winter disappears almost instantly. I make the mistake of making my seat by the open window, can see people playing Frisbee with dogs many floors below in the grassy area where Brother Jed sometimes proselytizes when the weather is nice. I wonder where he is today. The air is truly intoxicating and I feel too dizzy and lightheaded to decipher the Passe Simple. I pass Mark E. a note, telling him that I am going to forcibly make him skip our fiction writing workshop to keep me company on the thick, green grass of Dunn Meadow. Today though, memory dissipates into the air, begins the only negative part of this process. For the next two months, I will find myself feeling constantly like I'm falling, dizzy again, unable to concentrate until I can say with certainty that I am ready to begin. I could almost swear the magnolia tree's buds grow larger every day now.

The Shape of Things

Two good signs that the long, dark winter will soon be gone: On my walk to the bus stop yesterday morning, I saw one of my red-tails. This means they're back, repairing the nest for another year of raising young. I've missed them. And, a small swarm of ladybugs accosted me this morning. Other things have gotten totally bizarre/crappy and aren't nearly so cheery, but I can't make myself care today. These are the two things to which I cling.