How Watching Baby Owls Led to a Breakthrough
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The sky in Central Florida that afternoon appeared as though someone had mistakenly pulled a blanket over the sun. I stared overhead, transfixed, as the clouds swirled past, their swollen sides punctured by sudden bursts of blinding white lightning. After a breathless moment, the heavens broke open and dropped down a flood.
The gloom of it all matched my mood. I’d been working on a novel and none of it was going right. Deep in my first bout of writer’s block, I felt lost and alone. I kept looking for a sign that my muddled thoughts would suddenly clear up, but there was nothing but darkness.
After what seemed like hours, the sun sliced through the dim and shone the world fresh and green. The wind had left behind a tangle of downed limbs from a massive oak tree. And then I noticed movement in the nearby grass. Baby owls—five of them, bedraggled and bug-eyed, unused to the light. Almost immediately, one jumped onto the lip of my birdbath, gulping rainwater. Another joined him there, and the two huddled together, blinking at the destruction of their nest. It looked as though they had survived a hurricane. As a lifelong Floridian, I could relate.
By nightfall, three of the birds had disappeared, but the remaining two stayed on in my yard as indefinite guests. I loved their small, curious faces, their plush down, their grasping claws, and how their heads swiveled in ways that seemed to defy laws of nature. Once the sky turned dusky lavender each evening, they took off to hunt, but by morning they’d always find their way back home, perched together and dreaming.
I began writing outside at a table directly below their makeshift nest. They’d open their yellow eyes and occasionally emit a silent hiss if I got too close, but, for the most part, we were steadfast companions. Every morning, I’d pour a cup of coffee and wander out back, sure it would be the day I’d find them gone, but the owls were a constant presence.
Stop Me If You've Heard This One
Watching those baby birds flit and trill lifted my mood and—eventually—my imagination. I began to find solace in the small, quiet parts of my work. One sentence was enough. One precisely chosen word was plenty. If the owls could survive on so little—their shared branch, the stillness of each other’s company—couldn’t I do the same?
I rounded the corner on my draft, but the babies were now young adults, eager to leave. One bright day, I walked outside and finally found they’d left. I was sad at the loss but ultimately at peace. Now I know that progress always begins with one tiny hop forward, and I have the owls to thank for that.
—Kristen Arnett is the author of Mostly Dead Things and the upcoming Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One.
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