I was looking through my cupboards and came across a huge bag of miscellaneous feathers which I spent the morning organizing.
When I was growing up, I remember looking out my window at a huge tree, a few acres away, in our neighbor's back yard. In that tree (which was actually four trees that, from our house, look like one huge one) was a very large vulture nest. I remember watching the birds as they circled the tree, their huge wings curling under them as they landed on their nest.
The day I discovered the tree outside our window was actually four, I had been following our Australian shepherd, Uboo, who, on a whim, ran excitedly, crazily, through our neighbor's field. Below the trees was an ominous looking little shack and on the ground, surrounded by feasting vultures, was some kind of decomposing animal. Little red innards spilled from the corpse as the huge, ugly, bald creatures pulled apart bits of its body. Amazed as I was by the scene, I stopped abruptly, too frightened to move any closer. I never discovered what kind of animal it was. The birds were giants, their wings about as long as I was tall and bigger than our dog. I called as Uboo terrorized them, fearing that, at any moment, they might turn their attention to her, or me. I imagined them landing on my shoulders, eating the eyes from my head. Eventually I ran away.
Uboo, being the luckiest dog in the world, returned sometime later, unscathed.
All throughout my childhood, those birds left huge feathers in our yard, feathers as long as my forearm, that I meticulously collected to make quills for my brothers and me. I learned calligraphy with them, signed my name with bright red ink in my sketchbooks. I don't know what ever happened to those quills.
Nearly 15 years later, I find myself still collecting feathers. None quite as large as those I found in my yard, but just as magnificent. I wear them in my hair as a memento, a memorial to those birds whose nests no longer exist.
(ps: I'm pretty sure they were California condors)
