The Rake, otherwise known as that which keeps me up at night

A few weeks ago we got a visitor. We knew it wasn’t human, but past that, we weren’t taking bets. It sounded like someone was raking concrete….. in the forest behind our house. We wondered if it was bats. We wondered if it was a band of exotic birds that moved in because of global warming. We wondered if we’d ever sleep again.

It starts up every evening at sundown. It goes like this:

Yes, there was a cat’s meow in there, too. That’s just part of nature at our house.

But I’m writing about the raking sound. Keep focused on the raking sound, OK? Please understand that we can’t focus on much else.

I posted on Nextdoor, the source of all local wisdom. You used to have to find a wise guy with a long white beard sitting over a campfire.

Things have changed.

Anyway, my neighbors, whom I could have talked to on the driveway but instead with whom I exchanged electronic messages sent over miles to servers which then translated them and bounced them back, told me they were barn owls.

A lovely little family of barn owls living in our redwood tree.

Really? I wanted an exotic explanation, and I got barn owls.

Sure enough, my son and I went down and saw this mess under one of our redwoods:

Zoom in, enjoy the guano!

So, OK, we love nature. But does anyone know an owl sharpshooter? Because we could really use some sleep! We’ve got the white noise generator (affectionately termed the “windge” when nothing else would get our preschooler to sleep), up as far as we can stand it.

I dream of raking concrete. Really.

When I was young, I would put up with many things. I would put up with my cats sleeping on my face.

But now, having raised two children, I have my priorities. And my priorities are sleep, sleep, and sleep.

Before the barn owls, we had golden eagles. I’ll tell you, I know which kind of neighbors I prefer.

Anyone know how to serve an eviction notice on owls? Anyone want a nice home, set back from the street, super quiet?

We might have one to sell you.

Loving and loss

I had a dream:

My family was in Paris. We were on our way to see a friend, who’d rented an apartment there on Forest Ave. (As it goes in dreams, all the street names were borrowed from Palo Alto!) My family and I were going there, but somehow we got separated and I was alone. Everyone around me was a tourist; no one knew anything. I tried to use my Google, but it kept sending me around in circles. “I know,” I thought. “I’ll call Abe!” I tried to use my phone, but it wouldn’t work.

“Oh, no,” I lamented, “I’ve lost my Abe!”

I woke up.

My favorite lil’ guy photo.

Not surprisingly, this dream happened in the early morning hours on the day that we were taking our firstborn to college. It’s a happy day, but it’s also the saddest: we’ve finished the job, and our son is leaving our house.

True: I know all the things you’re thinking. He’ll be back soon enough. He’s not going far away. This is just a natural part of life.

All true. But it’s also the official break with his childhood. It’s the official start of his adult life. It’s the very real experience of not having anyone to call on to take the garbage out.

My husband and I would jokingly call him “the man upstairs” in the last year. His bedroom was upstairs, and if we needed anything done, we’d text “the man upstairs” to get it done. It was great to have another adult in the house, but it was also clear that it was time for him to strike out on his own.

This is the sweet-n-sour taste of a job well done. When we send our kids off into the world, we feel good about it. We know that they will do the best they have with what they’ve got to start with (same as we did). We know that we’ve given all we could possibly give.

But we also know it’s an end. They’re going off to their own lives. The cycle starts again, and we think, misty-eyed, about our own college experiences.

And then they’re gone.

And we’ve lost. But we’ve also won.

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