A Morning in the Life of a Heron

When dog poop becomes metaphor

I walked through the yard yesterday hunting for dog bombs, a sometimes-multiple-times daily chore but, with 7 dogs, a necessary chore. In a wierd way, scooping dog poop helps me cope with things that keep me awake at night. Last week our yard stayed meticulously clean, but it took me a while, there in the wet, overgrown grass, to find my center. Maybe I should have fed the dogs more.

I did wonder what I looked like to the people whizzing by in their cars and trucks. I wore my old gray hoodie and standard-issue summer camp shorts with 7 pockets, held up by my favorite leather belt with every expansion hole worn thin, evidence that I've grown, shrunk and grown again through the years in spite of myself. I scooped and waded through the late fall grass, lifting my long legs like pistons, straight up, then forward, then straight down into the wet grass, trying to keep my shoes dry, careful to avoid making a ripple. I stalked from side to side through the yard, head down, stained baseball cap shading the morning sun shadows, and my feet began to feel a little chilly, the wet beginning to soak through my shoes. I hate getting wet feet. I figured I looked like a heron, a great blue since that's the color I usually wear, and I took a second and looked at the image in my mind's eye of a tall, elegantly awkward bird wading along the shoreline of the river where I grew up. In my imagination I saw the bird's legs, one in solid support and the other lifting straight up, then stealthily easing forward to slip secretly under water again, gently settling in the sand or gravel of the riverbed. The heron's long neck and head craned with purpose, delivering messages about the food supply just under the surface of the water. I took another step in the grass. I was 13 years old again, a heron with feet cold and wet, eyes focused on what was just under the surface. To succeed in finding food the heron had to focus, blocking out distractions, noise, and the traffic of a healthy river. I stopped my search in the wet grass and took a deep breath. "This week has to end," I thought to myself. I have to find the center that took me so long to build, not so very long ago. The river will still run, the dew will still soak my shoes and socks, and the years ahead of me will still arrive, although probably not in the bright and hopeful form I had gotten used to dreaming of. My dogs, who will always poop, will still beg for my attention, and that is how they brought me back from despair once before. I stood there in my river of wet grass, one foot poised and the other standing firm, promising myself to work harder to push aside the distractions, the noise and the traffic of a changing and uneasy world.

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