I’m down low on my hands and knees with gravel digging into my patellas. My fanny hangs out from under the back bumper of my car; I look like a stuck toad. I’m attempting to reach a sheet of once- white paper and reciting in my head: Please don’t blow away again.
My son, though I can’t see his face because of my backward bullfroggish position is, I’m guessing, mortified.
I feel like a complete idiot.
Such dunderheadedness began several months ago when my son said he wanted to work at the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program. All well and good until I found out a parent needs to sign up, too. Perfect. I sent my husband; he came home from the initial meeting and said something unenthusiastic like: “Maybe you should do it.”
Fine. Huff. “I’ll do it,” I said, feeling very selfless and pure and hoping my husband would notice he owed me.
After my son and I went to the second session, I was spun and dizzy. “Wow,” I said as we walked to the parking lot. “I don’t even understand their language. I’m sure it will get easier.” He looked over at me with an angelic-because-he-can’t-help-it face: “What do you mean?”
Not only is he overwhelmed, I thought, but he’s gone full daffy with over-information: He thinks this is easy. Gently I tried to explain. “I mean we don’t understand the zillions of acronyms they’re using, for one. Like GHOW-LP.” He responded, “That means Great Horned Owl — Light Phase. What else do you want to know?” He didn’t even sound stuck-up.
I, however, remained wobbly as we headed into the flurry of learning. He flurried smoothly, absorbing newness of task and information with the grace of a thin, loping, gazelle. Me, not so much.
Take the time I was asked to prepare a cage for an injured barn owl. Several knowledgeable, skilled, agile, people (let’s call them KSAPs) kept the creature’s stress to a minimum; one held his carefully draped body, one his feet and sharp talons. Another readied his bandages; each moved with quiet precision.
I picked up my two buckets full of water. Then I dropped one. The KSAPs stood calmly in their wet shoes, and looked at me while the disturbed bird hissed like an air compressor. I said something oops-oriented and ducked away (“Exit, stage right”). Later, Gabriel helped me mop.
Then there was the time the biology student with the dangly earrings and the persimmon-colored hair trained me to write charts. My son had already finished; he hung around wondering what was taking me so long.
I remember the trainer’s earrings because she said if she’s not careful, the young turkey vulture will nibble them. And because I could hear them tinkling over my shoulder as she watched me write the chart. The problem came when I had to subtract the amount of the bird’s leftover food from the amount of prepared food.
Nothing makes me go blank faster than someone watching me do math. I could not, for the life of me, focus on a simple math problem with pretty-earring-trainer watching. I couldn’t duck this time. Pretty-earring-trainer simply waited for me to buck up and get ahold of myself. So did my son.
By now, most of us have defined what we think we’re good at and we spend our time being good at those things. It’s a bit of a closed circle, but it keeps us in charge, in control, adept and comfortable.
Right now, I’m uncomfortable. Sometimes klutzy and clueless too.
Back to me crawling under the car. I eventually came out with the paper in my hand — important information about the eagles. I handed it to the trainer, a tough, capable grandmother/eagle handler. “Sorry,” I said, “I don’t know how that almost blew away.” She simply said “It happens to all of us.”
I looked at Gabriel and he looked back, not embarrassed, not irritated, just calm. “What else do you need to know?” said his eyes.
It’s not so bad looking like an idiot. I think I’m getting better at it. Shoving yourself into a space where you’re not any sort of expert, at all, is squirm inducing for most adults. Thing is, it’s not often you find something so clearly good for your soul and so full of small, each-earned, joys.
Rocky Mountain Raptor Center will hold a new volunteer information meeting 4:45- 6 p.m. tonight, 720 E. Vine Drive, Fort Collins. 970-484-7756. info@rmrp.org
E-mail Fort Collins poet and writer Natalie Costanza- Chavez at grace-notes@ . Read more of her essays at .
