Time for Me to Fly

"This isn't working for me, he huffs, slouching on the sofa on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

“We need a retreat in the mountains. Not. All. This.” He waves his hands frenziedly in the air to make his point.

She’s heard it before. More than a dozen times in fact. Frankly, she’s tired of hearing it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah…I know, she muses.

But this time she alarmingly notes a greater sense of urgency in his tone. She can’t imagine a world where she couldn’t stroll a few blocks to spend hours exploring an art museum. Or a world where she couldn’t run out to grab a hot pastrami sandwich at 10:00 p.m. on a Tuesday if she has a sudden craving.

But he is their self-appointed decision maker. If he sets his jaw, his plans always become their reality. And his jaw is set.

This is just how their relationship works.

***************

She’s perched on the deck of their mountainside cabin, steaming mug in one hand, a novel in the other. She sways in her rocking chair. Back and forth. Back and forth. Its runners persistently wobble. Thu-thump. Thu-thump. Thu-thump.

The forest is alive with a dense, unfamiliar symphony – the rustle of leaves scattering to the ground in the early fall breeze, the relentless chatter of insects, birds warbling and calling out to one other, gravel softly crunching beneath the hooves of a doe and her speckled fawn strolling across the clearing below.

A faint, involuntary smile lifts a corner of her mouth at the sight of wildlife just yards from her morning coffee. And she tries, for the hundredth time since their arrival, to force gratitude into her soul.

I’m high up on a mountaintop surrounded by woods. Isn’t this ‘living the dream’?

But she misses the contrasting cacophony of the city­ – the rumble of subterranean subway cars, the blare of taxi horns, the banging of garbage trucks emptying dumpsters, and the clamor of shouting voices rising from the street below. Those sounds strangely always calmed her and kept her grounded.

She sighs, realizing their latest relocation is going to require a much longer adjustment period than all the previous upheavals she’d endured over the course of their relationship.

She lifts her book, trying to focus on the words. But unaccustomed to nature’s din, she can’t concentrate. She rises from the chair, wrenches open the heavy sliding glass door, and steps inside.

She notes that the embers of the early morning fire he’d lit before leaving for work were still glowing. Another calculated bribe to convince her this isolation was a gift. For her.

She sinks into the overstuffed sofa, pulling a plush wool blanket over her legs to ward off the high-altitude chill.

“At least I can hear myself think in here,” she murmurs to the empty room.

She cracks open her book again and finally focuses on the mystery lying deep within its pages. But the warmth of the fire and the weight of the blanket soon take their toll. Her eyelids grow heavy. Her breathing slows. The book slips onto her lap as she drifts off.

Suddenly, a violent THUD jolts her awake.

She jerks upright, her heart pounding against her ribs.

“Ugh. Now what? I am truly starting to hate the great outdoors.”

She strides over to the door to survey the deck but sees nothing. Flipping the lock, she pulls the door open and steps toward the threshold, stopping just a fraction of an inch before her bare foot plants itself upon a tiny, fragile bundle of feathers.

A motionless chickadee is lying on the threshold. Its neck bent at a tragic unnatural angle. Its eyes permanently closed.

“Oh no, no, no…”

She kneels and hesitantly traces a single fingertip over the soft grey down of its back. The bird remains perfectly still.

“This is bad. Very bad.”

If he were here, he would have grunted in disgust and dismissively swept the tiny corpse off the edge of the deck for a fox to devour in the dark of night. Or he would have grabbed it with a paper towel and dropped it into the garbage can, loudly slamming the lid shut, delivering a message of finality.

But he wasn’t here. And she had the entire afternoon to engage in a deliberate and respectful response to what the universe had just delivered. And what it had delivered wasn’t just a glass pane casualty. It was something greater. Much, much greater.

***************

She searches all over the house until she finds a small, sturdy cardboard box, then lines it with tissue. Gently, she lays the bird inside and wraps tissue over its body, as if putting it to bed, then closes and seals the lid.

She descends the stairs to the garage with box in hand, retrieving a gardening spade, then heads across the clearing into the woods.

Her eyes survey the landscape until she spots the most majestic tree on a hillside. Between its large root clumps, she digs into the damp earth, carefully burying the box. She packs the soil down, then scatters brittle leaves over the dirt to conceal her work.

He would mock her if he happened to stumble upon the evidence. None of this is for him to know. It is a secret belonging entirely to her and the forest.

She pulls a single tiny flower from the ground nearby and lays it across the grave, making it appear as though a soft breeze had gently blown it there. Then she whispers a benediction, thanking the creature for sharing the mountain with her, however fleetingly.

Standing over the tiny grave, she has an epiphany. She finally understands exactly who she is and what she values. And who he is. And what he doesn’t value.

The bird on her deck wasn’t an accident; it was a violent, undeniable message from the universe. A directive that she needed to wake up. Her wings had been clipped for far too long. This chapter of her life needed to close. An existential door was swinging open for her to walk through and into a new life. Change was coming, ready or not.

***************

She marches back to the cabin with complete clarity.

She packs hastily, filling her car with as many of her essential belongings as she can cram into the trunk and backseat.

She pens a single sentence on a small scrap of paper, dropping it on the kitchen table on her way out the door:

It’s time for me to fly.

She slides into the front seat of her car and turns the key in the ignition, hearing the engine roar to life. She shifts into gear and presses the gas pedal.

She listens intentionally to the crunch of the driveway’s gravel beneath her tires…for the last time. She takes a deep breath in anticipation of navigating the long, winding, treacherous road down the mountain…for the last time.

And it would be the absolute last time another human being would dictate how, or where, she lived her life.