Click images for desktop size: "Fire Leaf" by Stag This weekend it was pointed out that I have a bad temper. I know I do. Its a flash-on flash-off sort of bad temper. For a moment I'm enraged and then the next moment I've pretty well forgotten what I was mad about.
It was the sort of rage that lasted just long enough to bust through the defensive line and get to the secondary. So as a teen my behavior was tacitly encouraged. Some coaches didn't care about me or any player beyond what we bought into a winning equation.
It wasn't until college that I was able to put most of my demons behind me and see the game of football and my life as something real and beautiful.
But even a brief mention of my temper made me think of something dark. Its a secret I've kept for a lot of years. Its something I've ashamed of, even though its not an willful act or something to be this ashamed of. Its like hitting a squirrel in your car. But it affected me.
Its ancient history. I was walking the dogs. It was a day when the santanas were blowing hard and there was no surf to take advantage of it. While walking I found a baby bird that had fallen from its nest. Blown from its home. My big female Belgian actually found it and whimpered at me until I picked it up.
I looked around some but couldn't see anything that looked remotely like a nest. I couldn't return it to its home so I took it home with me.
It was a tiny brutally ugly thing, all pink, closed eyes. I called my vet and he told me to feed it a mixture of milk, honey and Gerber's pablum. He also said I'd have to feed the thing every three hours . . .
I drove down the hill and got the ingredients and an eye dropper. For the next month plus I feed the little thing. It just kept getting uglier it seemed to me. I mean this deformed pink body soon got covered with these glossy, mucous looking unattractive yellow quills. I was lucky they didn't feel as gross as they looked.
Soon the quills opened into scraggly looking feathers, the bright yellow beak, its best feature at the time, became a mottled black thing that could hurt you when it pecked at you hungry for food.
I couldn't imagine a mother bird ever finding something like this beautiful,
Click images for desktop size: "Flower Sisters" by Tarah Haack but they do and spend all their time hunting for food to feed the ugly things.
I was having my normal sleep issues so the waking every 3 hours to feed the demanding thing didn't bother me too much, if at all. In short order I had a young common sparrow, female. She turned that nice dusky brown. She was fine and healthy. She learned to fly on her own. All over the house. Her droppings were hard little pellets and were easy to clean up. Which is lucky in a house with 3 dogs, two rabbits (who lived outside of their cages), a cockatoo and a two year old boy.
It was a big day when it came time to release her. I took her out in the back yard and watched her fly up high and then turn and fly right back into the house . . .
I took her outside again and this time closed the door. Her response was to dive bomb me, and tangle her feet into my hair. She clearly wasn't going anywhere.
For a couple of weeks I stayed outside with her, trying to get her to acclimate to being outside. I hoped she'd met a nice male sparrow and fly off. She liked darting around the lemon and orange trees but she wasn't going to leave. If I made any moves she was on me like a shot.
I soon grew fond of having a pet wild bird.
She was a nice addition to the household. She ate bird seed and fruit, liked to watch us work. When I'd come home she'd fly up to me sit on my shoulder and then climb into my shirt pocket, turn her self around in there until she could poke her head out. Then she spent the evening having me walk around while she cheeped at the world.
At night she would come and rustle her feathers and sleep on my chest.
That's where the trouble was. Even know 20 years later I still think I should have made her sleep in a cage but she'd lived with us like this for nearly 2 years and and and a whole lot of other justifications I have.
In my sleep I rolled over one night and crushed her.
She was dead and by my hand. I'm still haunted trying to remember what I did in my sleep. I loved my little wild bird who'd picked me for its mama.
There are very few things that I am responsible for that have devastated me like the death of the little bird. I was inconsolable. I blamed myself which makes being inconsolable even harsher.
I probably should have gone to grief therapy. I missed her flying into my pocket. I missed her hovering over the stove, looking for a cool spot to watch me cook. I missed her bringing me little bits of paper or string.
You could say I was being prepared
Click images for desktop size: "Full Metal Alchemist" by Mota for a greater tragedy that was coming but I didn't know that.
All I knew was that I had killed something I loved. And hated that feeling. I hated what I had done.
Since I didn't consider a shrink. I went to martial arts. It was an outlet I'd used before. Sometimes as a mode of controlling my temper, sometimes just as a physical release.
The first one I tried was Aikido. Too much sitting around in zazen position and meditating. It hurt my knees and meditation didn't help me do anything except fall asleep.
While I admired a martial art that had no attacks, only defense it wasn't for me. So next I tried Tae Kawn Do. I liked the violent explosion of it and all the kicks. I was a good size to be effective with it. It just made me better at being violent. It seemed to have no under pinning other than quickly and effectively destroying an opponent. That could have just been my instructor, I don't know.
I played around with various forms of kung fu. I liked it but wasn't a good size for it. I wasn't effective at it as much as I admired its beauty I sort of sucked. I'm not used to not being great at physical things.
This time I listened to my buddy Tom and went to Shotokan karate. He thought it would help assuage my grief and rein me in.
Since Tom is still the most violent person I ever knew I had always had doubts before. Tom's idea of restraint was counting to one before he punched you. I was feeling so bad I went to a class.
The funny thing about Shotokan karate was its strong underpinning in history. The school was founded by Guichin Funakoshi, the guy who invented karate in Okinawa. My teacher was one of his original students.
The class was more miserable than two a days finished with nut cracker drills.
We would throw a punch 1,000 times. Do a horse stance for over an hour. The attitude was that the body had to be exhausted so that the mind left the equation and you became total reflex.
It works.
It also worked for me and managed to take my mind off the death of my little bird. I even got used to the idea that there were women fighters who could easily take my head off.
I went to a special training. A four day regime of hell. The day started with a five mile run, barefoot along gravel roads. The highlight was the day of 10,000 kicks and 10,000 katas. Which were exactly what they sounded like.
And the teacher explaining things to us in a calm patient tone. Philosophical things, talks about combat and how to avoid it. He spoke to me personally. I don't think I've ever been so befriended by someone who had less ulterior motive.
It wasn't enough to make me forget my little bird but it let me come to grips with it. To deal with it.
It made me do everything I could to not hurt things that I loved. It made me more cautious with the things and people I loved.
I still have not forgiven myself. Maybe one I can be that strong.