A life closely observed tends to be the goal—whether explicitly so articulated or not—of a well-lived life. We do, after all, only have one chance to savor the wonder that is us and our world. And it is certainly true in the world of words and stories that some of the most compelling writing has come from close observation, whether on the grand world historical scale of Tolstoy’s imperial court and timeless hinterlands, or Proust’s madeleine-inspired self-referential reveries, or Perec’s apartment building, or de Maistre’s single bedroom. The most extravagant and the most banal are equally good portals to seeing the world in wonderous new ways.
Which brings me to owl regurgitant.
It is a topic on which, I may modestly now call myself somewhat of an authority, and of which I’ve of late, been a very close observer.
You may read elsewhere, should you be so inclined, about the science and biology of the owl’s need to upchuck the remains of the day. It’s all very fascinating, but not entirely germane to my writerly predilections to make something of the very vast quantities of it through which I’ve been quite literally been wading.
LaBu, like many such places in this part of the world, features—built into the fabric of the houses themselves—an owl nook. These openings in the stone are intentionally attractive to one of nature’s great controllers of small and fury pests. A cat is all well and good, but an owl can do things in the night that leave your typical rodenticidal tabby feeling a little wanting.
Most of these owl nooks open into a contained box, where owl parents can raise their little ones in peace, and from which they can sally forth easily for a bite. At some point in LaBu’s history, a previous caretaker decided that an owl box—nestled in the rafters—was extravagant. Why, when one has a perfectly good (and well-insulated) space between the ceiling and the roof—stretching the entire length of the house—would anyone need anything else?
Imagine now, if you will, the following. It is nine-thirty in the morning, the rain-soaked light is dribbling through the one window into a room recently divested of its bed, vanity, and chair in pursuit of the room’s (and house’s) renovation. A manly swing of a five kilo crowbar breaks through the ceiling’s plasterboard, the curved end of which catches, and eager to get things underway, its wielder pulls hard.
A downpour is not the right word. Deluge comes close.
All I can think of as pounds of owl regurgitant cascade over head, my shoulders, and begin to pool around my feet, is that this must be an example of a lack of Dante’s imagination. And this goes on for five days. Smack, pull, and pray. Pray that the filters on my mask work, pray that whatever it is that is working its way down the back of my tyvex suit is just sweat, pray that someday it’ll all make a good story. And it does, because like all good stories, it has an ending.
I’ve kept a few choice examples—the beginnings of a new curiosity cabinet at this wonderful old house in the Norman countryside—ones with the feathers of small birds sticking out, the perfectly preserved mouse spinal column, the still sharp claws of a vole, and skull of what I can only imagine was a very, very confused snake.
In each one of these pellets—each oblong and about an inch-and-a-half in length—there is a story of life and death, birth and want, the cycles of nature and the seasons. And now, of course, the manifestation of a lifelong dream to make a place like this a place that is ours.
Most has now, also of course, been tidied up, swept into one of the sixty or so plastic bags that have moved along in a train of trips to the local dump. A slight odor remains—not entirely unpleasant, but one I’ll be happy to be rid of. But each a part of this larger story, still unfolding, whose end isn’t entirely known, but whose component chapters are worth living and recording. And hopefully, worth reading.
Wonderful! Better you than me, far better!