A Barred Owl in the Infinite Darkness of the Maine Woods

a written sketch | an encountered text

sketch⬩text
monthly on The Matterhorn

Photo of a Barred Owl by Philip Brown on Unsplash

SKETCH: The following is a word sketch - a part of a work of evolving fiction & a short reflection on my writing practice.

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Near Brunswick and Topsham, Maine

When I wake in the dark, time is suspended. I’ve been lifted away from it, untethered even to the tick tock of the old clock that was hanging on the wall when I moved in. Instead, it becomes a metronome, keeping a rhythm only. My eyelids move in a dance. Limbs levitate to the beat.

Pulling aside the curtain, I look out from the large bedroom window, gazing into nothingness. It is a vortex of light created by snow crystals on the ground and tree branches. They beam toward an empty center, as if creating a path specifically for me and nobody else. 

There’s a space between life and death where all the expectations and responsibilities disappear. The layers of performance also fold into themselves. They are meaningless here, as are our mistakes or failures. 

Here — in the dark — we just are. We eschew judgment. It is a return to innocence. The pure being — a soul? a child? — leaps freely. 

I am reminded who I am. 

Despite the frozen tundra, I open the large window facing the Maine Woods. Ice crystals immediately form on  my eyelashes and chin, the tips of my ears. I open my eyes to the mysteries of the darkness. The wind speaks to me. 

Hibernating creatures are encased all around and as they heave in harmony with the wind, the land breathes under several layers of snowfall. My mind walks out to see. The ice beneath my slippers propels me forward, like a path created just for me. I don’t take any steps, instead gliding forward as my body leans back on an invisible force.

Suddenly I am face to face with a Barred Owl, hovering mid-flight and staring me down. Nose and beak nearly touch. In those predatory black irises, I see flecks of experience. The pupils fixate on me, daring me to look away. 

I realize it’s not a threat this owl is trying to create. Instead, it is a knowing. It is an invitation into the deep, dark woods. 

My slippers continue to slide but the support drifts from behind my spine and I fall, flat on my back. The owl continues on its flight path through the space I had been. 

Whoooo…whooooooo…whoooooooooo — 

A word enters my mind: kokokhas¹.

Moments pass in the cold imprint on the snow. I breathe deeply to levitate and enter the window from which I left the bedroom, returning under the covers, falling into a deep slumber. 

I find I am most happy when I am able to take early mornings for yoga and writing, before the layers of the day start to come into my space. As enjoyable as many of these layers may be, they often inhibit me from writing. And to write, I first move my body or breath in a way that serves the purpose.

My favorite time of year for this ritual is the winter — because of the snow, the cold, and the darkness. I love to open the balcony door a brief moment and feel the sharp cold before closing myself in, turning on a light and the localized heating.

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TEXT: I share with you a recent encounter with a text.

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A Tale for the Time Being, Ruth Ozeki

I picked this book up on a whim at one of my favorite bookshops in London, Daunt Books, which specializes in travel but also categorizes much of its fiction by the place in which it is set. Click on the link to see the magnificent lofted wooden balconies, the stained glass, and the green blossom lighting.

Ozeki’s novel was in the internal alleyway between the more commercially laid-out entry rooms and the exquisite room I’ve just described. This tiny passage has many gems of recommended books. I was drawn to the Japanese-sounding author as well as the subjects of Time and Being, vague as they are, the title signified to me a philosophical journey.

A Tale for Time Being moves between a Canadian protagonist named Ruth and a Japanese narrator of the novel Ruth finds washed up on shore and imagines has arrived in due to the 2011 tsunami in Japan. The stories interweave Japan, Canada, and the US with family histories, Zen and Western philosophies, and mental health. The story moves into the surreal at times in a way some might associate with other Japanese authors like Haruki Murakami or Banana Yoshimoto.

Much of the story focuses around the question of suicide and the different attitudes toward suicide from Japanese and American cultures. The exploration becomes more nuanced than this cultural binary and the novel inside the frame narration moves into a Holden Caulfield-like situation where an adolescent is able to persevere despite bullying and the existential questions she develops following family difficulties. In other words, it is a book about choosing to live, similarly to Catcher in the Rye.

Ozeki’s biography mimics the movements of the protagonists in her novel. According to her website, she was born to “a Japanese mother and a Caucasian-American father” with dual citizenship in Canada and the US. She is also a Zen Buddhist priest. Much of the novel brings us elements of multilingualism, explained in fascinating footnotes, as well as investigations of philosophy and Zen that are relatable to the reader. She tells us in one of the afterwords that she set out to write a novel that was Zen. The result is a poignant and wise bildungsroman.

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What are you reading/viewing or writing/creating? Let’s hear it.
Thanks for being here.

1. The word for Barred Owl from the Abenaki Native Americans, who lived in Maine.