The Rainbow

It's been a while since I've come back to write here, but maybe it hasn't been as long as it feels like. For a while I was thinking from time to time I should come back just to mention that the heartbreak is fading and although the challenge of trying to get by here on the budget I have available for it is a big one, I think I'm getting more of a handle on it.

A couple of weeks ago, I think on the day I last wrote, now that I think of it, I applied to Rev after looking through some articles on more unconventional ways to make money, as opposed to a regular hired job. Rev is a captioning and transcription service and work space; they hire freelancers who can use the online tools they provide to claim jobs as they come available and type captions to videos and audio from clients. I went through some testing and was approved to join.

It's been exciting to have something I could do with my hours from home to make money on my own terms, and although I'm not currently earning at a rate which is going to solve all my financial problems, it's work that I like and I think I can get better at it over time.

Yesterday just for example I wrote captions for a weird music video, and started work on an hour-long documentary I'll need to finish today. I get exposed to a lot of different media I probably would never have watched on my own, and the variety makes this job interesting. I'm glad to have something that takes advantage of my precision with words and good typing speed, although in this case, it's precision in listening to hear exactly what words someone else used, not choosing them myself.

As often happens, I've found solace in love from those around me by deepening my relationships into romance. There's a degree to which I feel uncomfortable about that, since it's happened so many times before it feels like I'm turning predictable or something, becoming a cliche. It's frustrating that that meta-awareness messes with my appreciation of the moment, because the thing itself is beautiful anyway.

So once again I've had a wonderful time talking endlessly to one of my friends and finding that there is potential for us to be closer, and it was all appropriately delicious. I've drawn a few pictures, hit by inspiration from the new relationship energy and finding with pleasure that the skill I've accumulated over the years makes it much easier for me to depict what I want to reasonably well, and I've been producing work I can be proud of in just a couple of hours.

The thought to see if I can try to market that as well does come to mind, alongside the long-standing intent to try to set up an online shop for my macrame bracelets. The way things are going so far, it'd make me an all-around crafter-freelancer, and you know what? That could be pretty cool.

Sunday night this week I pulled an all-nighter hanging out online with this relationship that's changing colours in my life, and so yesterday I had trouble staying awake in my classes. I gave up and went home to sleep after the first two. I slept again last night, although not ideally long, and walked to school today listening to a variety of renditions of "The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond". There was one instrumental version in particular that I reflected would sound just about perfect if I could have added the sound of rain into it, for an atmospheric connection to the sky and fields as they are, I suppose.

Well here's where it gets a bit strange, because not five minutes later it started raining. I'd finished the song by then, but the timing was remarkable anyway. I had been admiring the many colours of silver in the clouds, as there often are in Ireland, and it's not as though it seemed unlikely for it to rain, but just that it happened right then, as opposed to fifteen minutes earlier, struck me as somewhat uncanny.

But what was moreso was when I looked up and almost jumped to see the change in the sky; where there hadn't been not five minutes before when I took a photo of the lovely silvers in the clouds over the green field I was passing, there was a rainbow, full across the sky and not the slight half-bow I'd sometimes seen in rain in Canada.

Over the next little while, the rainbow got brighter and brighter by the moment, not only a full arc across the sky now, but apparent right to the ground on both sides, even casting its colours in front of the distant hills on the horizon. It looked as though you could have guessed to within a dozen meters or so where exactly it seemed to touch down on one side. Looking on with awe, some of the old legends of searches for leprechauns' gold made a lot more sense all of a sudden.

For a period of not more than ten minutes or so, the rainbow brightened and brightened, clearer and more vibrant than I had ever seen a rainbow in my life, with a second, dimmer arc beginning to show outside the main on the sides, and then began to dim and fade away. I caught a few photos of the rainbow before it was gone, and the sky returned to gray as the rain continued lightly for a while longer and I went on my way toward the college. The whole of its appearance may have been contained in a quarter of an hour.

I thought back to King of Dragon Pass where the appearance of a rainbow was considered to be among the best of omens, and to other similar things, and felt rather a lot as though the sky had smiled at me, 'like forgiveness' in a way, I remember thinking. There's a certain cheshire-cat-ness to it now, looking back, that leaves me feeling curious and portentous. Perhaps it smiles on the progress of my new relationship, or to reassure me that my efforts are good enough, for now; or that I may be soon rewarded for not giving up on my time here. Who knows, but there is that in me that wonders, even while its being silly and seeming misguided is also felt in my thoughts.

So there, anyway, is the rainbow which greeted me this morning, and the trend of my activities these past few weeks. Health and fortune to the ones I love and to all those who love me, if I may spread it out to them, for their fortune is also mine after all.

And good day.

The Red-Tailed Hawk

I was job hunting at the campus today, taking advantage of the quiet, disused classrooms of the late afternoon in summer term, and the air conditioning, with my laptop and my music.

I was walking around the campus after a couple of hours of work when the falcon flew by me. She passed only a foot or two from my left shoulder and crossed in front of me to land on the green, a huge bird larger than a raven, looking about the size of a cat... but lighter, no doubt; a lot of that visual size is feathers.

I came closer and watched her (male hawks are smaller, so it was almost certainly a her, because she was huge). She stood on the lawn, looking in every direction, checking her surroundings cautiously, and walking slowly. She seemed aware, but not alarmed, as I came closer and then eventually stopped when I could see her comfortably. A great bird; hooked beak; bright, cunning eyes; huge wings, a faded grey-brown with gentle variation; long, distinct fan of a tail, tawny coloured and ended with a thin black stripe and white tips. Having done some research at home, I understand she must have been a red-tailed hawk, possibly a Krider's or Harlan's hawk, with a light, spotted chest and face.

Her quarry was a small groundhog. It stared at her; she did not stare at it, but kept looking around her, alert for dangers. She often looked at me. The groundhog made its effort to back away. Trundling backwards, it was slow and awkward. Several times over the groundhog stopped, perhaps to rest, perhaps to encourage the hawk to forget it was there. She flared her wings at it while walking forward, making her visual presence huge and imposing, coming on like a living wall of talons and feathers, and several times she jumped at it with a single beat of her wings, patiently, testing.

The way it ended was that the groundhog backed into a wall; the corner bricks of a garden, not high, but twice the height of the animal. It could certainly have climbed the barrier, but it would have had to turn its back to do it. The hawk lunged, the groundhog hissed and counter-attacked, threatening to bite her talons. She drew back, but lunged again and struck, her broad wings hiding the groundhog from my view. I heard it scream quietly. She must have struck well, because she did not draw back and strike again, but only clutched it tightly until it was dead.

She raked it with her claws some time after it had stopped moving, and (always looking around her) adjusted her grip and flapped and stood on it; adjusted her grip again, and flew a short distance. The groundhog must understandably have been heavy, it looked a third of her own size. She stopped and rested in the garden, bit at the groundhog, and waited a while before flying another short distance onto another area of lawn.

At about that time, a visitor to the college campus greeted me and asked for directions finding something. While I was talking to him, the hawk flew away and I did not see where she went.

I occured to me that I could have run in and scared away the hawk, if I had wanted to; I could have rescued the groundhog, or taken the kill from her. I doubt she would have the audacity to fight something so much bigger than she was. It occured to me that I could probably eat a groundhog, although I have no idea how to skin and butcher wild beasts like this in order to eat them. Although I considered this, I only watched her, in quiet reverence and awe for the grace and the violence of the hunt.

I don't believe I've ever witnessed a wild animal hunting and killing another wild animal. There was something utterly beautiful to it, and perhaps part of that was the mercy of its brevity, and certainly part of it was the simple necessity of it to the hawk. Or perhaps it is largely that I was simply entranced by her. Watching her watch me, and the world around her, and hunt and claim the groundhog with what I can only describe as cool, competent professionalism, confidence and patience in every move, felt a little like falling in love.

I did a little bit of searching into falconry. I may want to consider seeking an opportunity to work with these birds somehow in the future.