The Wisdom of Owl

This is Post #5 in the Journey to Truth Series

December 1, 2023:

When I was young, I instinctively understood the healing power of tears. When I was overwhelmed with emotion (sadness, frustration, anger) I would play my favorite Kenny Rogers album on the record player. There were a few songs on the album (The Gambler) that would bring me instantly to tears. And I would play them over and over until I had cried myself out.

Until I felt…less sad (angry?).

But after the fire, not even my favorite John Mayer (my grown-up Go-To) songs could soothe me. And I knew, I knew, that who I had been just a few (long) months before had indeed perished in the fire.

February 11, 2020:

A few days later, as I lay in bed in the wee hours of the morning, I hear a sound I’ve never heard before.

Hoot, hoot.

My eyes fly open. What the….? No. Couldn’t be. We have no landscaping on our 1.11 acres. Not a single tree for an owl to perch upon. I close my eyes again.

Hoot, hoot!

I bolt upright in bed, glance at my husband. “Did you hear that?”

He nods. I grab my phone, type in owl symbolism. Here’s what it says:

Owls live within the darkness.

Well, so have I recently.

The appearance of an owl symbolizes death and rebirth. Transition. The owl will guide you during difficult times in your life.

If feels like a lifeline. The owl feels like a lifeline. And lord, how I need a lifeline.

As my husband steps into the shower, I pull my journal from the bedside table and open it to the entry dated February 8, a few days prior:

I am broken. Shattered into a million

little pieces. I fit the pieces back together,

but the image that stares back at me is blurry. Unrecognizable. Is she my future self?

If so, did my old self die?

And I know. My old self is in the process of dying. And it isn’t just because of what happened. It is not just about the fire. It’s not about my retirement from my professional career last year. Or selling the home I’d lived in for seventeen years. Or moving a thousand miles away from everyone I loved and everything that was familiar. To a new place. For a new start.

It is about all the things I’ve never talked about. All the things that matter.

The fire was symbolic of this transition I am undergoing. A burning away of the old so that a new me could emerge. And I wonder. Will I like the new me? Will the new Suzanne be someone who feels something other than sadness and loss and anger and rage? Will she be happy? Will she rediscover her joy and her passion for life? Will she write more amazing love stories and do yoga and cry just because she is happy?

Will the wisdom of owl help her to find peace?

I throw back the covers and climb out of bed. The sadness does not follow me. For now, for at least this minute, I am free. And as the hot spray from the shower caresses my back, I feel something I haven’t felt in too long.

Quiet.

Inside my head it is quiet. And I know that one day soon this dark cloud will lift. And the new me will emerge.

I cannot wait to meet her.