The Harpy and the Pterosaur
but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair."
- Old Chinese proverb
The nest in my hair is enormous. Built by a harpy eagle in 2019, it is comprised of nails, skins, feathers, hair, and opossum tails. Pellets dot the structure and mix with dozens of bones; Arms, legs, backbones, pelvises, and skulls serve as a horrid reminder that life is fragile and death a reality we all must face.The skulls, in particular, look eerily familiar, almost human. [ripoff reference]
I was bitterly angry when this bird first appeared. It's a vociferous creature seemingly possessing only a few call variations. Every jarring death reminder is met with WHEE-ooooo. I became accustomed to it over time. I was at peace with both bird and nest.
Until this week. Until Monday.
The harpy eagle returned to perch atop my head. Its WHEE-oooooh shook the rafters and deafened the ears. Sharp talons bit into my skull. I didn't scream into the void that day. I was in a state of denial.
Tuesday arrived. The bird stopped his antics and flapped down from his perch atop my head. He landed on the split rail fence that divided conscious and subconscious.
"Hello?" he tilted its head. "Seriously?"
I sighed. What? What do you want, Sorrow Harpy?
"Hey! Hen!" He lifted a wing and did his best to point to something behind me.
I never had the chance to turn my head. It hit with brute force. I was taken by surprise, shoved into the ground with the harpy's nest smooshed to my face.
"Hennnn, seriously!" The harpy really wasn't helping. "Do you know what that is?! What's on your back? It's a mother plucking pterosaur. You have a tupuxuara on your back." He paused, perhaps sizing up his options, and then said, "Lemme get a stick."
I was too caught up in trying to breathe to pay any attention to the harpy. The tupuxuara weighed heavily on my back. It felt as though a few talons had wrapped around my skull.
"That's a Terror Pterosaur." The harpy had returned. He adjusted the stick to suit his bill, and then landed a strike on the pterosaur's head. The creature wasn't phased.
There wasn't any point in trying to defeat the thing. It was too heavy. It suppressed my grief. It corrupted my sensibility.
"Oh, for fluck's sake! Get up! Get up!" the eagle began to strike the interloper repeatedly. "You need to move, Hen. Crawl out from under it. It's not real. It's not real!"
I spent the rest of this week torn between sorrow and the crushing weight of denial.
I miss my Mum.
"Hey! Hen!" The harpy once again perched on the split rail fence.
I sighed once more. Oh Jesus Christ, what? Stop harping on me already. We ended this. And I'm a gruff chick, not a hen.
"You are a maimed old hen."
Point taken, even if it's from an internal personification of sorrow that begins sentences with ''Hey." But look at what's on my back right now. I'm dealing with greater Sorrow Bird than you.
"No, you're not, and that's not a Sorrow Bird. It's all about terror. You're going through cascading panic attacks. You're in denial. You mother's death was so sudden, and that has you panicking over the future death of your husband. You're shutting down, emotionally, because shit is too real to handle right now. There's no shame in that."
The harpy returned to hitting the pterosaur with the stick before pausing to add, "That terror is more overwhelming than sorrow. It's larger. Unlike sorrow or anxiety, it can't be consoled. It remains there, unrecognized and obfuscated. You need to move. Get out from under it to see it as it really is."
The harpy is right. I've put up with panic attacks all damn day. Why? My mother's health declined suddenly. What if the same happens to Jeff? Or the dogs. Or my Aunt Honey and cousins? Dwelling on this would trigger an anxiety attack, not a panic attack. I'm disgusted with myself at the moment.