by Sarah Williams
I didn’t know we had white owls in Utah until one crossed my path on the Jordan River Parkway. The first time I saw it, it was dark out, probably too dark to be on this stretch of the river alone, but I had my bike, and I always felt safer on my bike than on foot. Summer was brand new, and I could not be kept inside. The bird flew from a high branch on the west shore of the river, right in front of me to some hidden place in the east I couldn’t find for all my looking. Her wings wide and so silent, it was like she wasn’t even there, a white shadow, a photo negative of the night. The summer was full of promise, and I took it as a good and beautiful omen.
I had recently lost my religious faith, and taken up a new and fresh faith in myself. An ex-saint, apostate, heathen, devouring life for the first time like Eve, letting the juice of each apple run down her arm, and drip onto her bare toes. Leaving the garden of my innocent old life, I stood at a new door I was just beginning to open with fear and joy. It was going to be beautiful, I knew it. The owl meant good things. The river was part of my new faith because it was part of me. I walked it for miles every day, untwisting the thick coils of past beliefs, and the disdain of the righteous over my fall. The smell of the river, thick in the summer night permeated my skin so deeply that even after a shower, I would still be able to smell it on my pillow. In summer I am the river.
The second time I saw the white owl, I was pedaling down the same stretch of river in the darkness, the last strains of summer evaporating in cool autumn foreshadowings. She flew in front of me in silence. Again, she was a promise, a good omen, but this time it was different. Through the summer, I had opened the door to my new life, and found that parts of my old life had been more damaging and painful than I thought. Moving past them meant I first had to open closed places inside myself. There I found a sort of Pandora’s Box of shocks, and I was knocked to my knees. It had hurt so deeply, that I had come to the river night after night to heal.
The river, in its own past, had been an industrial byway, pumped full of sludge, stinking of sewage and factory runoff, but now healing, reclaiming her nature, her trees, and grasses and myriad wildlife. The river and I understood each other. We were re-wilding ourselves, purging the sickness of the past and the hatred of those who resented that we were no longer available for abuse, pulling out each layer of toxin and filth until we were scarred, but clean, at least on our way to clean together. It was over, at least this summer’s worth. I’d found a new place inside myself of personal power, and exorcized the old of obedience and sacrifice. The white owl stretched her wings wide in front of me like Noah’s dove with the olive leaf. The worst was over. I was free. I rode on in the darkness with the river towards home.
I was born in Kentucky and have lived in many states across the US. I have spent most of my adult years in Utah raising my three kids in the Mormon church. I am the author of the middle grade novel Palace Beautiful. I am currently and ex-mormon, empty nester living with my boyfriend Peter in Georgia, starting the next series of life adventures.
What's something you do for yourself when you need comfort? I still love walking for comfort. Now I walk in the forests near my house. I always feel like I am home when I'm in the woods. I also love to play guitar and sing and write poetry and books. I love spending time with my boyfriend Peter and talking to my kids on the phone from where they still live in Utah. Water is soothing for me, too: swimming, bathing, and sometimes just breathing that thick wet beautiful Georgia air.
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