Raccoon Ptotem

...................................................................................................
Raccoon

Later I moved west, and was staying in Monterey for a
weekend vacation. I was waiting in the parked car for a
moment with the windows down outside the lodging office.
The cold ocean air was something as new for me as was
everything else NorCal coast : the abalone, the sourdough, the
cypresses and redwoods, the no nonsense fogs, the
microbrews, the Pacific tide pools that will freeze your toes
sky blue.

The bay was spread out below me in the distance, the sea lions
were barking. I was drinking in the magnificence of the scene
when my eyes came to rest on a storm drain in the curb of the
street passing by me. More accurately, my gaze met a pair of
dark-rimmed eyes looking back at me. A very large raccoon, a
giant compared to those I had seen in New Mexico, Oklahoma,
or Texas, crept out of the dark drain in the street. Then two
more raccoons followed. Then two more. Five of them total.
They had a sort of awkward shuffle. They were perhaps more
sure of themselves than they should be, taking chances in the
open, standing right in the middle of the road.

Just then a big army cargo truck zoomed by and scattered the
group of raccoons to different hiding places on different sides
of the street. First nothing moved and I thought I would not
see them again. Then they regrouped and collectively looked
at me as if each to say in her own voice, "Look, I just am
who I am."

I love them for that. Beautiful low-lying creatures of the night
continue to be just that, no matter where in North America I
seem to find myself.

________________

The ptotem for March is the shark.
Submissions of original sharky images
should be sent to pterobones@gmail.com
no later than February 20th. All submissions
will be included in March's Ptero Heart.

Welcome to the Ptero Heart of Luna Taylor

February 2010

Letter from the Editor:
Beer & Broken Hearts

Ptotem: Raccoon

Years later I was out hunting with my brother and dad in
deep Brush Country, Texas. We were on a blood trail for a
wounded wild Russian sow. On our knees with flashlights,
looking for the purple glimmer of drip drops to show us
where she was dying. Where she was angry. Where she was
fighting. It was dark by the time we heard the crunching and
grinding of teeth. Dad told me to stay close to him. My boots
dragged through the sandy earth as we climbed between
mesquite branches around prickly pear cacti. There was no
moon by which to see as we closed in on the area, my heart
pounding, my nerves bristling. Then was the moment of
discovery and we were right upon the sound. We shined our
lights on the ruckus, but instead of finding a shot sow, we
found three large raccoons, standing plantigrade and
curiously pausing to see what the artificial light meant,
guiltlessly munching corn. Danger drained from that moment,
but not mystery.

In certain eras of my life I become a dark-rimmed beauty
myself. I sleep little. I fear nothing. I practice not the usual
rules. I am out all night dancing with my ring-tailed bandits.
Borrowing attics and crawl spaces to catch random naps,
digging through trash, and sometimes lashing out and biting
the skunks and stray cats who try to share my dish. I perform
with my tail held high and vain and up to mischief. I revel.
Dark ash crosses my forehead. My rimmed eyes showing off
the deep soul of that night's possibilities. Carpe diem. Carnival.

Eventually I return alone to my nest, wash off my mask, and
do a different sort of work. But once a raccoon heart always a
raccoon heart. This I feel strongly about.

Few will deny that dark-rimmed eyes are beautiful. There is a
sense of mystery there, a sense of survival. Raccoons are
inquisitive. They are bold and sometimes secretive. They grab.
They scrub. They pick apart locks. They climb down tree
trunks or telephone poles headfirst—with little hands not
unlike human hands.

My grandparents owned a beautiful acreage in Northeastern
Oklahoma when I was growing up. It was an old piece of
land with foundations from other structures of farms past. I
spent summers exploring, scrambling about barefoot in the
red dirt and the lush vegetation of the hollows. Grandpa
always grew fresh tomatoes, onions, beans, and corn, and
though I did not yet love to eat fresh vegetation, I loved the
sights and smells of any garden. I wanted my toes in the
earth and you could not keep me out of the trees. Come to
think of it, still cannot.

A few small apple trees framed the yard around the house.
One summer evening, as the light turned lavender, Grandma
and Grandpa called for my brother and I to come outside.
They told us to take a look into one of the apple trees, and
there, evenly spaced one above the other, were three tiny
raccoon faces looking back at us. My memory is of how
comfortable and how curious they seemed, even as cameras
shuttered and children grew excited. I reached out toward
them and Grandma said, with a bit of horror in her voice,
"Don't touch! Rabies."

1. Leif Stark "Every Ptero Wants Love"

Raccoons will eat anything. I have hiked up on them more
than once dining on carrion. I have seen one with a frog
hanging out of its mouth. When I was living in a river bottom
in Austin, they lived under my house. Every night I could
hear them moving. I wondered what they were doing. I
could hear their claws against pipes, against wall. From my
patio, which was suspended over the bank, I would see them
clamber out into the night in a line, one following the other.

I watched this happen one cold week when the trees were
already bare; they filed out and not half an hour later they all
filed back with a persimmon each in their paws. It was a
beautiful site, the bright fruit contrasting the dusk descending
on the oaks and brown leaf cover, and the flash of black and
white ringed tails. I went on a search for the persimmon tree,
but I never found it. For all I know, those thieves shuffled
right into someone's kitchen, opened their cupboard, and
spilled their cache of secrets.

3. Brandon Dobson "Nessun Soldato Ha Paura"