Flying

  On our morning walks, I often have the pleasure of viewing the big red-tailed hawk that hangs out in the eucalyptus grove in the dunes. Sometimes there are two of them together. It's always a treat. I actually wave and say "Hi, Hawky", as I walk or run beneath the big branches. I like to think it recognizes me, nodding it's regal head my way in greeting.

  I love to watch hawky fly in or out of the trees, wings spread wide and beautiful, screeching loud to let the world know just how grand it is to be alive. I have to stop myself from flapping my own arms in unison. 

  As kids, summers were long, leisurely and sometimes hazardous. We would spend hours and hours just running wild through the neighborhood, or even better, through the hills just over the fence. I was one of the boys, for the most part. Tomboy. That was me, either proving myself on a bike or with firecrackers, or playing "booty on the board", a truly painful game involving a basketball, that really tested your capacity for pain. Wearing the "hand me downs" of my brother, and sporting a very short haircut for swimming, I didn't really feel like I fit in with the boys or the girls in the neighborhood. 

  I found that what I enjoyed most was being by myself, hiding out in the hills and flying. I liked hopping the chain link fence that designated the county property line, and heading off on my own.

  I could spend the whole afternoon running through the waist high grass, arms open wide, jumping as I ran, just to gain some "air".  I would be a hawk, a falcon, an eagle....I would screech loud and proud, knowing that no one could see or hear me. It was a special freedom you could only have as a kid of a certain age. I was old enough to know better, but young enough to still believe it could be, if I wanted it bad enough. 

  I read ''My Side Of The Mountain" and cried because it wasn't my life. I checked out every book on hawks and falcons that I could get my hands on. I remember stumbling across a series of books in the local library about this couple in Norway or Sweden...they would take in abused eagles and owls, birds of prey that should never have been in captivity in the first place. This couple would hear about these poor birds that were in zoos, or in some idiot's backyard or garage, tethered to some metal pipe or old piece of rotten wood, their talons frozen, or feathers pulled out, often starving...Most times they were saved, but often it would be too late. There were three or four books in this series, all true, all heartbreaking. I read them over and over, writing to the authors and sending them five dollars, a huge amount of money to me at the time, to help their cause. I've looked for these books as an adult, but no luck.

  I even researched what I needed to do to become a falconer myself. I wanted to find birds of prey to save and release to the wilds. Sigh. So young. I actually wrote to the Fish & Game Department, only to discover that: 

1) I was under the age of 16, too young to have a bird of prey, and

2) You never own a bird of prey, the State does, and they can come at any time for a welfare check and confiscate the bird, if warranted.

  It was hard for my little 10 or 11 year old brain to deal with. Perhaps things have changed. That was a long, long time ago. 

  Still fascinated by the big birds, I seek them out every chance I get, pointing them out to Johnny as we drive along to work or play. I am beside myself when I see a hawk in the birdbath in our garden, though they come rarely. I have watched, transfixed, as it drinks and splashes it's too big body in the little birdbath, then swooping along to it's next adventure. 

  I find it's never too late to dream of being a hawk, falcon or eagle. Never too late to stretch out those arms, running, jumping, taking off to soar up, up, up. And for sure, never too late to let out a loud screech, just to let the world know how grand it is to be alive.