Thursday, July 14, 2016

Me and my eagle










I always thought I would be famous for my writing, which you might enjoy sometime. I'll look around and see if I can find any for you.

But I did not become famous for my writing. There is a quote on a plaque that I pass often at the University I walk through several times a week, and I have meant to tell you what it says. It says:


We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours.

-Dag Hammarskjold


If this essay turns out particularly good I am going to print it out and frame it.

That sounds like a joke, but I assure you that that is exactly what Mr. Hammarskjold means. Ask him.

And so, mercurially, I did not become famous for my writing. But I became famous anyway. 

I became famous for my bald eagle.

There he was today, flying over my left shoulder, struggling to keep down with my slower pace. One eye on the river and one on me, he doesn't often like us to be more than 25 feet apart. People in the cars driving by grin and point out of their windows. The bicyclists coming against me on the path cease their peddling and look up, mouths open, and then look over at me, wondering what it is about me. A school child at the tennis courts up above the river road runs to the fence and cries out "There goes the boy with his eagle!"

Yes, that's me. I have an eagle.

The eagle flies ahead for a moment, free on the wind. 

"Where is your eagle going?" Some nearby admirers ask.

"He likes to fly ahead, sometimes, to scout the way. He'll be back."

But he won't be. I will meet him ahead. The eagle knows where I'm going, and so do I.










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