“Ada wondered that herons could tolerate each other close enough to breed. She had seen a scant number in her life, and those so lonesome as to make the heart sting on their behalf. Everywhere they were seemed far from home.”—Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain
He read the quote aloud, and when he finished, asked her, “Do you ever feel that way?”
She did not answer but left the words to linger. Would she spook and take to flight?
“I don’t mean to pry. Maybe I did. I don’t need to know. I just wondered. When I read it, the way the heron takes flight after Ada draws too close, it was something I understood. I have been the heron. I’ve always been a loner, near but never part to a fixed group, happy at a distance, but quick to take flight if pressured too close.
I think I’ve always been that way. Even in my home, I need space, time, and solitude. I rise early just to be alone: to think, to hunt in my mind for what swims and holds within. I write what I won’t say; share some with all, others with a few, one, or none beyond the page on which it’s scribed.
There’ve been times I thought I wanted something, someone, and when they drew close, it scared me: not them—the closeness. It was the presence and feeling of a forming bond that put me into flight. I wasn’t harmed. I wasn’t hurt. It was an instinct within me. I was acting as the heron. I became aware that I was no longer alone, and the awareness of another near and wanting to be closer spooked me from my hold. I wouldn’t even say I wanted to leave; it was just a way I was.
Reading it, I wondered how you see yourself: your friendships, what holds, what falls away, if you are one that makes a home everywhere you go, or if you are like a heron, everywhere far from home. Do you let people near, or do you keep a privacy and distance few ever break beyond?
This town is my home. I grew up somewhere else, but where I returned became my home long before I ever made it a place of permanence. I made it home in my mind after I first left, when I told more stories of it than I did of where I’d lived. It was the place I made my memories, adventures with my family—the only group from which I’ve never taken flight.
Even claiming a home, among people, I am still a heron. I have patterns for solitude in a world of surrounding others.
The quote made me wonder: ‘What draws herons to each other?’ I see them often, but always alone. I’ve never seen a baby and don’t know where the littles hide before they become grown. I’ve never seen their mating dance, though I’ve witnessed it for plenty of other creatures. It’s a quiet mystery in a world where so much is readily shown. What draws them close? What makes them hold, dance, create, before returning back to private solitudes?
I’d never thought of herons like that, but for the last day, it’s what I’ve wondered on.”
She never answered. He didn’t need to know. Neither spooked, and maybe they could hold if he stayed where he stood, or was patient in his desire to be nearer.
One step in haste, and the heron would be gone.