Thread by @rachelvailbooks

do you all need to know about the literal bird of prey that flew into my house when I opened the front door?

(not a metaphor)

okay here's what happened

I was about to go for a run. The weather looked perfect. I opened the door and smiled at the day, while tightening my ponytail.

A hawk flew noisily past me, into the house.
Its wings brushed my cheek.

On its way in, it dropped what it had been carrying by my feet.

Like a gift.

it was another bird!

Well, half a bird.

The bottom half.

No head. One leg.

Do you all want pictures or no?

I am conflicted about posting pictures, and VIDEO.

How did I get video? While a literal HAWK was literally flying around my living room, as I screamed at it?

You are probably thinking my husband who was upstairs on a zoom called came tearing out to see what was attacking me

Nope

He figured I had dropped something and was probably fine

NOTE: I don't scream continuously in very scatological terms when I drop something usually

or ask something I dropped WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN HERE PLEASE STOP FLYING OMG IS THAT A DEAD BIRD YOU DROPPED ON MY FLOOR

but maybe some people do scream stuff like that at a spilled cup of tea I don't know so maybe he was just being logical

it makes more sense than having a bird of prey circling my head and occasionally slamming itself into my windows, so who know

who knowS

anyway, I opened the back door and was trying to convince the hawk to come out that way.

I know this sounds dumb but I was afraid to open the front door, the way the hawk had come in, because WHAT IF THERE ARE MORE HAWKS WAITING OUT THERE

When the hawk made a particularly fast pass (we were doing a lot of flying and objecting to the flying, between the two of us) and slammed hard into the window, and fell on the floor in kind of a less-than-elegant position, with one leg splayed out, I started feeling like

... this could turn into a mass-bird-casualty event

and at any rate the hawk was not taking my gracious hints that this party had run its course please leave

so I did the obvious thing

I called my son

who was 100 miles away

He was appropriately impressed with the size and chaos of the hawk, who (thankfully) had managed to resume flying despite the leg injury

So impressed he called his visiting girlfriend from her (also zoom) work to come see

She's the one who took videos, if you wanna see

The girlfriend, Kira, suggested I should put on gloves

Me: I have ski mittens in the closet!

Kira: Um

Me: Or like gardening gloves? That might be better?

Kira: I just don't want you to get like bird diseases OH WOW THAT IS A BIG

Liam (my son): Maybe you need to catch it in a bucket. Do you have a bucket?

Me: I do! (I proudly show the bucket to them; we're on facetime)

Liam: remember when that bird crashed into the window and died that time?

Me: Yes and that was horrible! But it was tiny and OUTSIDE

as we discussed strategies, I was also talking to the bird, trying to both calm it down and convince it that I was trying to help it and on its side -- but also was an apex predator so please don't, yk, attack

It was really determined to fly through the window

I got a towel

not one of the nice ones

and, at the urging of Liam and Kira (No half measures! Be bold!) and with many suggestions to the hawk to please tuck it's wings in so I could help it get back outside

(where honestly I was afraid it might just keel over and die but better for us both than in the living room?)

(so to speak)

And then, friends, I DID IT

I wrapped that hawk in the towel (which we'd gotten free at a Yankees game years ago)
(It's not a bad towel. I meant not disrespect to the hawk. I use it myself sometimes at the beach!)

But in case you come to my house someday: not a bathroom towel

And I carried it, surprisingly light and calm, in my garden-gloved hands,
holding the towel around it like a kid coming out of the lake
avoiding the decapitated half-bird still on my floor on our way
opened the door with my elbow (luckily we haven't gotten the new door yet, with

... the trickier opening mechanism...

and before I could fully plan whether to set the hawk down or just release him and trust him to fly, a huge fluttering chaotic sound

and a feathery brush against my cheek

BECAUSE THERE WAS ANOTHER HAWK OUT THERE

WAITING THE WHOLE TIME

ANOTHER HAWK

They flew away together
In a loud clattering chaotic commotion

I went back inside and told Liam and Kira
They were appropriately shocked and impressed

and continued their moral support as I swept up the dead half-bird onto an old magazine of coupons from the Stop n Shop and

tossed it into the woods

circle of life

I scrubbed my floor, then went out for my run

I was in the shower when my husband finished working. Her came into the bathroom to say hi, how was your day

and confirmed that he'd heard me screaming
but wasn't worried
and it wasn't until

now, writing this, that I realized that the only fiction of this entire story is when I said it wasn't a metaphor

IT WAS A REAL HAWK AND DEAD HALF-BIRD AND OTHER HAWK don't get me wrong

but also:
my son, Liam, is leaving for England, for grad school, next week

Which is SO AWESOME
I am so proud and delighted, so excited for him, and he is 23, 6' tall and more mature in so many ways than most people I know
He is a man and a mensch.

And I'm so looking forward to hearing about what he's doing, and going to visit

I am not saying Liam is a huge bird of prey desperately throwing himself against the windows of our home trying to get out into the world, or that I need to gather my courage and be bold, no half measures, to help him get out there and then releasing him

I am not saying that...

or that the fact that ANOTHER ACTUAL HAWK was waiting and excited to see my hawk out there in the wild where they belonged had anything to do with the fact that Liam and Kira were together on the other end of that facetime call, gasping and laughing together so adorably,

but

I'm not NOT saying that

because if I were writing the scene in a book, it would be connected

but if I were writing it in a book

I would have wrapped him in my best towel
before I helped him fly free

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