Kay Buena's Blog

The Mystical Mystery of our Peacock & Where did it go?

Click on song of the day: Morning Dove lyrics are here

  My husband and I have lived in this house overlooking a visually dramatic valley in North/Central Austin for nearly 16 years.  But, before things became quite so static and smoggy, back through those years when the vision out the deck doors showed no buildings at all-and the sky was clear and a bright, light-cobalt-blue;  we were visited by one of the strangest  of all creatures, a peacock.  She was lovely, obviously lonely and made such a weird sound, as to catch the attention of anyone or thing near here. At first, upon her sight, I imagined perhaps she was a wild turkey–well another one, anyway; as I had seen those in back of our yard coming in and out of that forest of cedar trees.  However, that call, her constant cry, was so unusual as to stop me in my tracks (back then, when I had tracks, I had both real hips and both real knees, and was able to make tracks without fear of falling, unlike today.) And our yard has a dynamic slope, so she had to fly toward me.  Walking was much too undignified for her species unescourted.   And fly she did; first to where I offered her some bread and the outside cat’s water bowl.  Both of which she partook, in suspicion, for nearly 5 minutes, as I sat on one of the steps down that slope in amazement and dumbfounded awe.  She did not seem to mind my company, which seemed wrong, if she was a wild creature (however, even today, few do mind my company if they are wild…I guess that’s why we have a limited group of visitors, these days,or something of that nature.)   

  At that time, in early summer, my daughter was in middle school and still interested in visiting ‘wonders of nature’, when announced by her much revered mother,(ha ha…) and was still able to comply with her “Mom”, when she came inside proclaiming loudly; “Liz, you will not believe this!  But, there’s a Peacock outside, right now, in our back yard. Come Look.”  In those days she still had a tendency to follow a direct order, and also the curiosity of an intelligent child, something that only having children in residence allows us grown-ups to share.  So we both hurried out the main outside doors of the downstairs level of our home, which had only one flight of stairs to the patio and the Peacock.  She was still there, looking really puzzled.  We both said “wow..” at the same time (Poor child’s mother was an old hippy, even back then.)  The Peacock was unimpressed with our conversation skills, so off she flew to the roof of one of the houses (there were much fewer then, and far between) perched on the street going perpendicular from our hill’s view.  But the peacock still cried, and called her alarming reframe, as did Liz and I.   “Wow” seems pretty thorough, upon reflection of that summer morning.  We sat on the stairway and watched her fly from one roof to the other, until our attention span dwindled to some less exotic subject, who knows what it was?  But after a good 20 solid minutes of Peacock watching, we went back-inside.

     As I was inclined to do in those days, I thought  (over the presence of that particular  Peacock) for quite some time, wondering if she was really native to this area, or someone’s missing bird from a flock near here, that’s a genuine possibility.  We used to go to a lovely restaurant in the center of Austin, where  there were many peacocks, and peachicks, if that’s a word, roaming the grounds…well,that was an actual flock of peacocks; and besides the old fashioned, deep south, ambiance of that establishment, the peacocks were the main attraction back then.  And so, armed with the yellow pages and about 1/8th the population of Austin today, I made several calls to the Humane Society; Parks and Wildlife division of the City Government (I had a friend working there, way back then), and the County Agricultural agent, and on and on, until some kind soul says to me,” It’s impossible to know if “your(?)” Peacock is wild or not, although it is odd that she is alone.  So go bother someone else, etc…”  Good advice, that.

    Anyway, “our” peacock came to our back yard several times during the next couple of days and then disappeared like the water in the cat dish.  I still remember that unusual call, and the amazement of sitting right beside her as she ate and drank water.  Then, there is that factor- that next door to our house were three wild and empty Lots where in several gray fox had a den…  hnmmmm. Oh, well, I like to just think she found her way home. 

   Here is the view from a web-cam looking out side our house in the direction from which the peacock came.  Only ‘difference is this is happening right now, or with in a stream during these moments, and times, today.  Try and imagine what this would be like with most of these buildings gone:When we moved in our house there were hardly any buildings except the first few houses to the right of the view; click your refresh button (F5) to get the view of how it is right now, today; as It is best to stay in the present, even without peacocks.

     Once upon a time in a place far away from Austin, Texas, there lived a little idiot girl named Caroline and her family, who went all over the place, and she hated them all because of that.  And who would not?  Little girls like to feel cared for, secure and comforted, not dragged around like some old chair no body cares much ’bout, especially when they’re young.

     Now, oddly enough, that Little Girl changed, -overnight-  into a grizzlie Old Lady, who’s hand’s looked like a combination of her mother’s and her father’s hands, when they got old ( but it was like you could see both of their hands at the same time, every time she looked down at them, and they wouldn’t change back. ) And she hated them all because of that too.

     About the only thing truly good about her family, besides herself and her dog, Jenny,( well…maybe Jenny was really the only good one among that lot) she thought, but the truly good thing about her family that made them real speacial, was her father was kin to Pocahantas’ son.  Now, she was aware that this seemed like some form of somebody else’s idea of a load of horse doo, but it’wer the God’s honest truth.  She had seen the proof of that  fact with her very own eyes, ’cause one of her cousins did a big deal Thesis, and done got “a amster’ degree’ from college, which I ‘spect is better than a regular degree, but it’s hard to say. First time she heard that one, she though her cousin got a “hamster degree”, which sounds allot more likely.  But in truth, she did see with her own two eyes from copies of the ‘census’ taken over the years, where you could follow that group back to who was who’s mother and dad and all that, and the “piece of resistance” was the original land grant given to her grandmother’s family from King George III. Those kin of her’s must have been nuts as a cheezeball, cause old King George of England was crazy as they come; so he must have liked ’em right fine, cause they got an enormous acreage, at the time it was given- it was something like 6,ooo acres of prime farming land in the Virginia territory.  She thought it out and was pretty darn sure if her dad was kin to Pocahontas’s son, ‘chances are just as good that her father  (and this Little Girl that turned into a grizzled Old Lady) were “kins” with that old boy’s mothers ‘s-well, that’d be Pocahontas’ hereself.  It weren’t hard to follow that reasoning.

     That means that some part of that little girl was really an Indian, from  the Virginia territories. She didn’t know what part that were, but it didn’t matter much.  So she decided to start  play-acting with her dog,  Jenny (she’s part border collie, which are very smart dogs) in the Old Dog House right back of this particular house, that’s one of the houses they lived in when they went all over the place; And since she learned as how she was part Indian, for real, she could slip into that role quite naturally and easily, ‘speacially with that striped towel wrapped around her shoulders like an indian blanket. But even though she was pretending, she really was an Indian Girl all by her self, with her dog in front of an unlit cooking-fire, inside a little old house, (so that was like ironic or doublely strange)–Only she was too little, or too stupid, or too much of an idiot (like I said about her in the first place) so it seemed she weren’t able to figure in a lot of important stuff she was needing to learn about later, but after all she was only 6 years old. What could you expect, Rocket Science? 

      First off, she was gonna have a cooking fire like ’twas done when she saw Indians in the movies, but instead she ‘oughten’ to have put the fire in a more practical place, like outside, but she made up a right nice fire by the front of the door opening, so the other Indians would see the glow of the fire and know she was back there in that dog house. It didn’t seem like a bad Idea at first, ’cause it was just going to be a little fire. 

     When Jenny saw that one coming on, she took off quicker’d you could spit, cause she was one fine smart doggie.  But The little Indian Girl stayed right there, still staring into the fire, as it grew from the leaves she put on the bottom of the little dried tree branches she’d collected and carefully put all up into a stepel shape there, all by herself.   And the fire was so pretty, and it smelled real good, ’cause the branches came from under an apple tree in that back yard. But about the time she first noticed her fire was getting too big, there sort of whooshed out a strange noise, not like the fires she’d watched and listened to in fire places in other houses.  It sounded sort of like a whistling tune, but real quiet like it was whisperin to her, but with no real stable melody to it. But it was nice and warm inside that Dog house, and then the fire started to look stronger and bigger than she figured it’d ever grow on to be. She seemed to be hypnotized, but not in that weird way where her eyes would be going all in circles like the way they was always doin in the cartoons, but in a peaceful, solid way, as she continured to look into her “cookin’ fire”, and she wasn’t ‘ascared like she knew she ought to be. Then the “cooking fire” started catching onto the wood of the dog house, first into the floor and then up one side, and then to the other side.  But there she sat, cross-legged in the back of all that as ’twas goin on at the same time.   Only when the fire was a whole lot bigger than she was, did she understand that she was probably going to be on fire too, pretty much the next thing, cause it wouldn’t stop. And that wouldn’t be so pretty, and that wouldn’t smell real good either.

     It was so smokey in there, kind of like when her parent’s gave parties and every one was smoking ci-gars only worse than that, but the wind outside started kicking up ’cause she could hear that too.  Then some way out of that wind, came a strange sounding, moving real big shapeless thing that looked like it was a bunch of darker smoke, but  was real fast-like. And it wasn’t coming from her little puny legs and idiot head, that did this, but that smoke thing just sort of quicker you’d ever think any thing was possible, or any one she ever saw could do (and she was a fast runner herself, so she was on to what fast was), what ever that smoke thing was had her out of  and on the out side of that fire so quickly, she couldn’t even speculate or figure when it was done!  But she was out on the other side of the fire, still left sitting cross-legged, but definely outside of the burning dog house.  And that weird smoke-soundin’ whistlen continued, all during this that happened, and allot weirder than her brother’s eyes when he crossed’em and he whistled out the space a’ween his front teeth, that was her usual “too strange” thing, but not nearly as strange as that dark stuff that looked like compacted smoke, whisperin that quiet same whistling tune with no real melody to it.  And then that thing just faded into the direction the wind blew the smoke.   The little Indian Girl figured she ought to walk that way too, only real fast, so she wasn’t there when her family noticed what’d happened.   She might even find that same whistling wind-thing that took her out of that fire, cause she could have still been in the back where she’d be all black and burnt up, but she wasn’t; cause there she was, walking real fast, only  all covered with some black dirt, and the ends of her braded hair were sindged too; but she kept looking around  where she was, tryin’ to figure how that might have happend in some reasonable way, even though there wasn’t any clue ‘sept that sound went where she followed.

       But she found nothing there once she got way far from the smoke, she kept on walking that direction just for good measure, afor quite some time, cause she was way on down their street almost to the end of it, just thinking about what had happened that afternoon.  She even figured she didn’t really hate all her family either, only when they got real mad at her, like if she burned down the dog house on purpose or something. The she stopped walking and breathed real hard and stood real still, and went back to face the music, cause she couldn’t go on walking that way any further.

      The  whole Dog House and most everything near there was all burned down, and ruined, and black, and gone that day.  Even the climbin’ ‘Old Roses” next door on that fence that surrounded the back yard were that way too,black and mostly gone. There was only one big ( mostly blurt up) red rose left hanging on to the fence. She went there and took that away cause it was too awful to see. What was the Dog House was so awfully charred and gone, and every one in her family (that she’d mostly hated for pretty stupid reasons) were so truly sad about what happened there in the back yard , she could tell by looking at their faces. I think her mother had cried while she was out walkin’, but then  her mother looked real stern and went back inside the big house. The Little Indian Girl wished she could tell them about how that whistling smoke thing moved her out back of the fire, on to the outside yard. But she knew that wouldn’t believe her, “her and her stories.” Now, she hated herself too, even though what happened was miraculous and true, and it weren’t her fault, really.

       It stayed that way until her dad, took all that old black, left-over burned wood away. And her dad knew how to plant pretty green plants, in that place, a whole lot of new pretty bushes and flowers, so you’d never know about what’d happend. What was that dog house, I ‘spect, were’t nary a piece left over, and she got to be the one who mostly helped him put those new green plants too. Even when she looked at her brother, and he was doing that eye-crossed whistle thing to make fun of her, that seemed alright.  Even though they did that and it was so much better to see, she still felt real guilty, cause she knew she was the little Indian girl that caused that fire, but she wasn’t brave enough to say it were her that made that fire. And they would have hated her too. She had some suspicions they knew it was her that was bad; but they never said nothing ’bout that, not one word.

    By the next Spring, that yard was more pretty than it ever had been. Only thing that was bad, was the Old Red Roses to the front of that house that used to bloom so pretty, the one’s climbed over a white arched trellis there, died on down to the roots for no reason we could figure.  I guess sometimes that just happens. Even when The Little Indian Girl turned into being that Old Grisslie Lady, she’d think about what happened back then. Sometime’s she’d cry too, but it wasn’t a’cause the dog house burnt down, it was a’cause they were all gone but her-and they never even knew what really happened.

     Back in the days of the early 1960’s my family was living in Bedford, Massachusets in the Base’s housing at Hanscomb Field Air Fore Base.  The housing area was planned in a rather blunt but real as was implied manner, set out in a most stratified and obvious way, having 3 main streets named (by topological truth and by status of rank)very neatly and graphically laid out ,with the existence of an actual “Low Street”, a “Middle Street”, and a “High Street” to which each family was assigned quarters (housing) according to the father’s level of rank in the service.  We first lived in a temporary apartment, then were given a quite lovely two story house, very ‘New England’ in it’s style, and quite nice in it’s placement among rank and file, at the top of a hill surrounded by beautifully wooded natural land.   The beautiful natural Forrest enclosure made our base housing seem more like an up-scale neighborhood surrounded by an impressive greenbelt around it’s perimeters. My father was working for the Department of Defense in an important area of  National Security at that time.  I was a clueless 15 year old, not wanting to be up North, and doing everything I could to express that, as I remember it. This was a number of years ago… (Wow, it was actually about 45 years ago.) nnnnooooooooooway.

     We moved to Massachusetts from the coast of central Florida the summer before I was to attend 10th grade, the first year of  High School in those days (the big time.)  However, the culture and climate were ever so completely different, to the point that I remember thinking the Principal of “Bedford High” was doing a “Kennedy” impression when giving the morning announcements over the school’s intercom.  This I found to be quite amusing, something not shared by my peers. Wonder why that was?  Also, after we drove from Florida to Massachusetts in August of that year, I discovered the horrendous climate difference right away.  It got colder at night in the Summer there, than it ever got in the Winter in our previous station, where we had spent a most unusually long assignment (5 years). That was when my Dad was stationed at Cape Canaveral off the coast of Cocoa Beach Florida, back in the days when it was not so overwhelmingly populous as to seem to be an extension of Disney World, the Space Travel theme section or something of that nature, as it is today.

     The public schools were ever so much better, though, there in New England -and that was a remarkable thing. As a High School Sophomore, I and two other weird souls wanted to take “music theory” which, with allot of trouble and schedule shuffling, Bedford High provided.  My 10th grade honors English class was more like a college level lecture, the teacher being phenomenally dedicated to spreading his love of words and their power, along with the importance and insistance on following the preferred structured and correctly doccumented written work, which he assigned regularly.  He would edit these papers untill we learned this skill and neccesity on our own.  He was a remarkable speaker and the Drama coach as well,  so I participated in the Drama program there under his guidence as well.   There was even a genuine visual art teacher who knew his chops.  I had no idea this sort of thing existed in the world, but soaked it in like a sponge- however tempory it was.   But for that year, it did exist for me, even if my nose froze and I very regularly slipped on the ice and could barely spell Massachusetts.

     Most of the local culture was so firmly evident, having been long ago established with a reverence for academia not found in Florida (for obvious reasons-I mean, who needed that there?…) and the area surrounding Boston was oozing with such superlative displays of all kinds in the arts there, and the ever present excitement that came with living near a big city with such a particularly historical significance-that brought a whole new unexpected bonus with this odd year of transition.  That part of our stay made this area sacred to me, even if I was alienated by my status of Military Brat, a tempory, new kid, and obvious suspect. I went to the Club 47 with older friends and was introduced to the budding folk music scene. I remember attending a performance of the Royal Ballet when Margot Fonteyn still danced with the Royal Ballet Company.  Although I do not remember a single “Lift Off” of an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile the whole time were stationed there.  How odd that seemed at the time.  Oh, sure they played around with some “Nike rockets” upon occasion (?) but that hardly compares to intensity of the other experience, as to be so different, so civilized and so strangely smooth ,and so damn cold in the winter as to freeze your eyelids open if you walked into the wind.  It was the actual  living experience likened to the existence of when” Hell actually done froze over” to me, as it were, and hopefully, we were just visiting, even with all the added excellence in it’s local color.  Frankly the local color became blue like the tip of my nose upon occassion.

          Although this move and that year spent in the Boston area was one that broadened the perspective of my very naive life experiences, and probably froze away some overly-fashioned conscious brain cells, as the approaching reality of  Winter there did not ruin my here-to-fore optimistic idea that my long brown hair was the all occasion head cover for any occasion.  It was nearing Christmas before I realized that by covering my head with a very warm scarf or hat, this addition really would make quite a difference, and that there are those times when survival becomes ever so much more important than one’s fashion image at below freezing temperatures, especially when the wind chill is factored with in the equation.

       However, when Spring sprung ,up there, it was so overwhelmingly relieving ,and wonderfully, shockingly different, as to make even one as young as I was, truly realize the renewal of the earth’s cycle of life, a concept brought with wisdom not personally realized before that year.  I remember one afternoon in late Spring, when my mother was at some Officers’ Wives’ Club function, and not expected to return until dusk, when my big brother and I had one of the most over the top “water fights”I have ever heard about. It was quite comfortably warm and we had the screen door and some windows open to let in the Spring’s warm breeze. This was so altogether inspiring as we were seemingly freed from an icy prison, and yet again given back our childhood’s playful attitude, so impulsive and invigorating as to reintroduce our former stupid and purposeless battle for family supremacy. This, particular noteworthy exchange was undoubtedly started by the simple reality of my having to do some chores (NOT THAT!) that day -when I was putting some used and rinsed dishes and glasses in our new dishwasher (a first for our family).  This kitchen also came with a very handy tool, the removable and easily directed and defused spray nozzle at the kitchen sink-not the usual simple fixed faucet that we were used to having.  Of course, this marvelous new invention became the ultimate efficient and evil spray gun that never ran out of water unless you gave up and ran.  So, my brother proceeded to walk by on his way toward the door of the kitchen, providing the perfect and most excellent target for said convenient kitchen utensil.  I Sprayed him with maximum water pressure, and with out mercy and rather thoroughly (I thought). Where as he had only the glass of water he carried to return fire until he escaped.  Given my brothers proclivity for ingenious revenge, he found the garden hose and spray nozzle in the garage, which he then attached to the closest outside water faucet (all without my noticing him doing that).  I was almost finished my task of loading the dishwasher, when he returned with that far greater fire power, a fully pressurized garden hose, locked and loaded for battle.  My puny kitchen sprayer was no match for that garden hose at full blast, but we preceded to battle this out until noticing we had both of our persons and the entire kitchen sopping wet.  To the point where there was (mas or menos) almost an inch of water contained with in the kitchen floor. At this significant moment of inevitable retreat, for both, and the realization of the much needed reconaissance that we faced; we shifted our formerly advisarial roles, becoming allies (however temorary) in order undo the horor of our water war, which would not be viewed in the spirit intended by our parents.   We knew the battle was over but not the war.

     I think it took us over an hour to re-establish normality to that lovely, clean kitchen …err… with the very recently rinsed (quite thoroughly) light yellow tiled floor, and wiped down cabinets. The effort put forth took every broom, mop, and  dry towel in the house, which we thoughtfully put in the washer to clean, and the dryer to dry, sneaking down and retrieving them, folding them, and returning them to their former locations, later- on the sly.  Fortunately, the kitchen curtains were “wash and wear”, though I don’t think this was what they had in mind.  We had barely finished doing this, when we heard our mother come home, driving the car into the garage.  Though the hose and nozzle had not been returned to it’s assigned place in the garage, it was not a noticed factor, so we proceeded to behave quite normally, having changed out of our soaked clothes, and evil expressions.

     As I remember things, by the time my mother returned to change out of her very formal attire, I was sitting in the den pretending to read the newspaper and my brother was in his room ingrossed in his home work.  Just another afternoon, in the tales of the Air Force Brats, that we really were.  Too bad that time goes away as easily as the water disappeared that afternoon of memorable though dubious intent.

What can be done but agree;

The sky’s still blue, but does not see

with all our eyes- a moon so strong to

reflect electric songs,

Heard far and wide but still inside.

The lights have flashed the system’s crashed.

With nothing to say, the night’s rehashed

in black it’s hidden us at last.

Along the road, the rocks collide,

Explosions in space, toss matters aside.

Riders astride each other ride,still they waste this place in haste and hate.

While horses wait, until it’s safe, instinctively knowing to go, they escape

where we lingered there

to far and wide but still inside.

Be still the hoof that honors pride.

Can’t bargain with eternity, dealt for your mortality

if rocks have won the race.

Though we still see the stream, as the numbers fly by,

within the readout, what catches our eyes,

like rivers through this land where once waters through which we paid

we did see beauty’s trail, so tenuous and frail.

Too sumptuous to fail;

Still, far and wide but still inside

the perfect puzzle simplified we died.

It’s sound intensely magnified, drones on

and on,  it’s sanctified

By white noise nightingales, by white noise nightingales.

too sumptuous to fail, by white noise nightingales;