My Writing Life

This is my writing life...well, not really.

I think I'm going to talk about anything that is timely. It's Saturday May 27th and this is my virgin blog.

Today I had to chase geese off the road. I swear. I live on an island in the Pacific Northwest, where it's lush and green and very damp a lot of the time. But I love it here because water is everywhere. Water gives me a sense of peace. There's a wetlands near my place and when the tide goes out it's usually filled with ducks and geese and heron, sometimes an eagle will cruise overhead--a pretty cool site and one of the many reasons why I love it here.

I was driving along toward town and our local Safeway--Braeburn apples are in--and there in the road were a pair of geese and probably a good twenty or more little babies, no, goslings. They were all fuzzy and more golden than their parents, and were waddling over the asphalt because their legs are so new. It was quite wonderful. The papa was a huge black and brown thing (are there bull geese?) standing guard in the road as I stopped. There were about four cars behind me and another couple on the opposite direction. We all just sat there and waited. And waited.

Some of the goofy little geese kept running in circles, then started back the other way. It was like some kind of goose circus. Goose du Soleil. Anyway, after waiting a little longer I got out of my car and tried to herd them to the side of the road. The papa goose was not happy with me, probably sensed I was not a natural gooseherder...or that I am a writer. Maybe he was a book reviewer in another life.

Anyway, he was honking at me and flapping his wings. Next thing you know, I was hollering back, hissing like he was and waving my arms. I'm *so* glad no one had a video camera, because Papa Goose and I had a standoff in the middle of the road.

Now I want you to know this was a defining moment for me, because years and years ago, my grandmother had the meanest goose you could ever imagine. She would bite you. (The goose not my grandmother.) I cannot tell you how many times that mean white goose chased me away from the back porch door, nipping and biting the backs of my legs. My older sister told me that I used to look at that goose, scream, start to cry and run away. My grandmother would just chase it with a broom. As I recall, she used that broom on everything: dust, dirt, bull snakes in the pecan trees, her arrogant peacocks, and that mean mother goose. Now understand that no one could have intimated my grandmother, Martha Haseloff Streit. And today I finally grew some of her backbone and faced off with the first goose I've been that close to since those summers in Texas when the backs of my legs were bruised and bitten.

So here I am today, running around in the street, my arms everywhere as if I thought I could fly, hissing and shouting and facing down a goose who didn't know he could have flown at me and had me running back to my car. Another gal joined me and then there were two of us geese-chasing in the road. (I think she hissed better than I did.) Papa Goose backed off and they all finally moseyed over to the side of the road. By then we were laughing.

The other drivers honked thank you's to us. I imagine some of them might have needed to catch a ferry. When you live on an island, you live and die by the ferry. We got back in our cars like everyday people and went on our way.

I was just happy the geese were fine. They have only one mate, maybe for life. Does anyone know? Post if you do. I remember a really gut-wrenching moment at that same spot in the road probaby some five years ago. A goose was hit and its mate stood there every day, looking lost and alone. I remember I would get upset whenever I passed by. He stayed a long time. I always wondered if he ever found someone else.

I lost my husband Chris in the instant it took for a blood clot to hit his heart, so I understood that goose alone and standing at the side of the road. Somedays I felt like he was me. But I smile when I remember that Chris absolutely loved birds. He put up hummingbird feeders in the cherry trees in our place in the Bay Area. Whenever we went anywhere, he was always somewhere, lawn, beach or balcony, feeding the birds. I have bird feeders hanging from the eaves of my house now just for him. One of my favorite photos of him and of my daughter is the two of them feeding the seagulls in Monterey. Today, somehow, brought my husband back to me for a while. He would have been on the floor at the thought of me in that road, and would have secretly loved it.

So today I, Jill Barnett, chased geese, and perhaps for a little while Chris was with me again.