Otus Pocus

This is the greatest craft project I have seen, ever. Thank you, always and sincerely, Ms. Stewart, you are my hero.

When we were growing up, we being my two brothers and I, we would take these long walks through Marymoor park, through the open fields we would wander. I remember having great luck in finding owl pellets quite regularly. They were little bits of the macabre and science all in one little bundle. Awesome.

Macabre and Science. That could pretty much some up a lot of my experiences growing up. Hmmm...

Example 1: When we would go hiking at Mt Rainier my parents talked non stop of the Marmots, the little ankle biting creatures that would sneak up behind you and take nips at your feet. In my head they were a fantastical creature, a dark evil thing, something they had invented to scare us. It took me years to find out they were real, very real.

Example 2: Recently Jesse and I went to Roslyn for the weekend. While we were there I was feeling quite nostalgic for my childhood. We would take day trips just over the mountain and would either stop in Roslyn or detour through. One trip we made with my grandparents from Texas, while they were filming Northern Exposure. My grandfather got to meet the love of his life Maggie Oconnel/Janine Turner, and I had never seen my grandfather giddy before. But boy was he giddy. Anyways, the macabre. I have a clear memory of intentionally visiting the graveyard. And this wasn't the only one we had visited in my childhood. Every time we went through Port Gamble with my other grandfather we would stop at the cemetery. I remember the kids tombstones most clearly, shiver.

Example 3: My mother kept dead birds in her freezer. I'm smiling as I type this. It always shocked/s friends when I make that declaration. The thing is, they would hit our windows and die. We were so good at keeping our yard bird friendly that they would mistake our windows for more outdoors and kaboom! Another Towie for the freezer. While my dad was at work my mom would take us kids down to the Burke Museum with our bags of frozen birds and we would donate them. They stuffed the birds and kept them in these drawers. There was this huge room with rows and rows of drawers, all filled with dead birds. And the staircase down to this room was lined with bug collections in shadow boxes. I was hooked and from then on kept jars of mothballs filled with butterflies. With encouragement from my mother of course.

Example 4: I was Elvira for Halloween, when I was nine.

Macabre and Science made for a wonderful childhood. Full of exploration and wonder. The owl pellet can stand as a tangible symbol of my youth. It is both disgusting and beautiful. A strange body function of an almost magical bird. It represents the very real and logical and also the beauty and magic of our world, of death and decay. Plus, it's kinda like poop, which was, you know, also kind of important to my childhood.