Owls, Owls Everywhere!

My Aunt Marsha used to wear over-large glasses that were popular in the late seventies and early eighties.  She had shoulder length brown hair, and a mouth that was sometimes drawn into a terse line.  In short, she looked a little like an owl.  And it made sense to everyone in my family that Aunt Marsha loved owls.  People gave her owl sculptures and owl mugs.  On her window sill she had owls made from shells and owls made from ceramics.  On her walls she had owls woven into hook rugs and owls made of wood.  Whenever we saw an owl we could afford (and there were lots of them coming out of the seventies) we would get it for Aunt Marsha. 

One day, my Aunt Marsha, who was moving into a new house and starting a new chapter in her life, made an announcement.  She looked at us all solemnly in her smaller, updated glasses and proclaimed, “I hate owls.” 

You could have heard a mouse scuttle across the forest floor in that room on that day.  Everything we had believed of this woman, Aunt Marsha, had been an illusion.  Her first owl, she said, had come from her first husband’s family as a sort of gift to her, which she had to display or offend the givers of the gift.  And when my family saw the owl in her house, it suddenly had become Aunt Marsha’s totem to us.  We perpetuated our own myth about Aunt Marsha the Patron Saint of Owls.  She had had to put up with our owl enthusiasm for so many years before she finally put the tokens of owl-esteem into boxes and got rid of them.  She started a new, bird-free life.  She liberated herself from our expectations and moved forward. 

So I have always harbored this fear that I would be painted with other people’s expectations of what I might like and I kept my affinity for owls a secret for many years of my life.  It seems as though the last five years or so saw a rise in owl popularity.  Everyone had something with an owl in it, on it, or around it.  This trend kept me even more tightly lipped about my love of Strigiformes. 

There is some debate about where and when the apparently sudden love of owls come from.  You can find owl merchandise in all the trendiest shops.  Many cutting-edge people are standing up in life or on the internet to say they ushered in this age of the owl.  But I know better.  Athena, the goddess of Ancient Athens brought in the owl craze and it has been going strong since before 500 BCE.  I loved owls, why was I hiding this love to avoid having people think differently of me for it?  My love for owls is a part of who I am.  

So this Christmas, I proclaimed my owl love loudly and proudly. 

And people listened. 

My super cool Secret Pal at work (Jody!) gave to me a small stuffed owl, an owl hat, and an owl Christmas tree ornament among other wonderful things.  Another couple of work friends gave me a furry owl with a rainbow pin attached to his plumes.  And my Joseph even got in on the act.  He gave to me a stuffed owl with jazzy pink and purple patterns and an apron with an owl print and dangly balls on the bottom so I can entertain in my own owl attire now. 

I feel my owl collection is off to a good start.  And I don’t think it will go south the way it did with my Aunt Marsha.  For one thing, I truly do love owls.  And for another thing, I have many more loves I am more than happy to share.  For instance, did you know, I also love peacocks and garden gnomes? 

I had a wonderful haul this year for Christmas.  Thank you, everybody.