Pink Turkey ink drawing by Robynie on Etsy, $35.00 - Click to view listing.
I don’t think I’m officially qualified for days like today. Mind you: it’s only 7:23am and I already feel completed blindsided by all the good things and the not-so-good things in life. Observe:
At 5:15 this morning I got a text from my coworker (and friend) that her baby had arrived an hour earlier! She wouldn’t be in to work today. 😉 I could barely get back to sleep for the remaining 45 minutes before my alarm went off, but somehow I managed after fighting extreme joy and also a little sadness that I hadn’t quite come to terms with spending the next few months without her hanging out with me all day. Apparently I’m 4 years old and don’t understand that being pregnant ultimately results in an actual baby. Regardless, the happiness was way bigger so I finally snoozed until the cats were scratching the crap out of the bedroom door (which they do exactly 5 minutes before the alarm goes off).
At 6:50 this morning, my usual ‘get in the car and go’ time, I exited my apartment only to see all the CDs that had been previously stored in the car’s console were now all over the street. Serves me right for not joining the 20th century and having a nice portable iPod. Hmm. And my window, which was previously stuck about 1-inch open (damn motor broke, haven’t fixed it yet but now I’ll have to) was gaping wide. Oh good! A stranger was in my car, rooting around, stealing stuff. The only thing they took was was the iPod-to-Cassette adapter that boyfriend put in the car when his was hit-and-run a month back, also right outside our house.
Some people cry when they’ve been violated, some people get angry: I do best when I really try to see the irony in things. “O.K., Guy (or Girl): You got the rush of adrenalin when you broke in to my car and ruined my window, but it wasn’t like I was going to fix it anyways. Also you had fun rooting around in the trash, food containers, and receipts I leave in my car. Did you see that 50-lb tub of bottle caps in the backseat? Thank you for not screwing around with that. So basically you committed a felony for an iPod-to-cassette adapter which probably won’t even work in your car if it was made after 2001. Then you threw my crappy CDs (all our good music is on records) all over the road in a grand gesture of frustration that there wasn’t more than trash, bottle caps and receipts in the car). Good job, kiddo, you win the prize.”
I wasn’t even bothered on a logical level, more of a philosophical, boundaries-related level. Anyways I’m getting renter’s insurance today because if people don’t mind smashing in to boyfriend’s car or breaking in to mine it’s only a matter of time before someone tries something even more ridiculous. I’ll also probably get an “ADT” sticker for the door, I think that’s a deterrent, right?
So then I get to work, only after stopping at Tony’s Donuts for a creme horn and a coffee… because I was celebrating… and licking my wounds… all in one pastry. The guy there was like “Have a great day!” and he really meant it, so in my head I thought “Yes, OK, I will, regardless,” because it had already been 50% wonderful and 50% horrible, all before the sun really rose.
And I get to work, park in my spot, and saw a meeting of turkeys (that’s the proper noun of assembly, p.s.) walking across the golf course that abuts our parking lot. Oh! I cut the engine so I could hear them. They were talking, and one was making a real ruckus behind the neighbor’s fence. I counted them as they moved across the wet asphalt, I see them walking this path sometimes in the winter but not the Spring. They were big, adolescent turkeys: their talons clicked against the ground and several of them rustled their feathers, wet from the morning mist. 7..8..9..10. They made their way in to the thicker woods when all of a sudden a loud screech and the beating of wings brought two more turkeys flying over the fence to join their friends.
Because I’m a dork, and just slightly on the perimeter of believing in ‘new age stuff’ I had to search animal totems since it was such a poignant ending to such a strange morning. Apparently, after searching several slightly sketchy web sources, the turkey reminds us that things are ever-changing, of the value of ‘having enough’ and of course, sacrifice for the greater good. Having watched that PBS documentary about the guy who ‘imprinted’ unhatched turkeys and raised them through a year I think those big birds were just a reminder of the forward movement that we must inevitably take. They all walk together, slowly, on an invisible path that cuts through industrial parks, golf courses and deep forest. This morning my path was a big rocky, with ultimate highs and lows, but what else can you do except keep on walking it?
Little Eye Designs 