Went for a drive on this blue and gold autumn day with a bag of Sugar Mama's cookies in the car. Passed a flock of about a hundred crows and stopped beneath them on my way back. I got out of the truck and tossed cookie bits on the ground under the electrical line some of them were sitting on. They watched...and watched...and watched. I ran out of patience, turned around, walked to the truck, and looked over my shoulder to find about fifteen flapping their black wings and fighting over my offering.
So I moved the truck a few feet away, rolled down the window, and tossed out another broken cookie. Oh, they wanted that one, and I was clearly in the truck, so a handful figured it might be safe. They swept down, one or two at a time, and gave me the side-eye while they bobbed forward. One came within about three feet of me, stuffed his gob, and flapped away. I finally rolled up the window and pulled toward the road so they could converge again on the food I'd left them.
Came home and opened a box of recently-arrived tea from the World Tea House to find a gift from the owner (who knows my tastes). The Assam tea was indeed quite good; I was able to brew it to a rich, dark brown, and there was no bitter aftertaste at all.
Sean is on the mend from scheduled surgery, Salem remains reasonably healthy, and while there are both regular and irregular stressors aplenty this semester, I remain grateful for the opportunity to be at university. Some dark part of me has been cataloguing disasters lately though; too many hurricanes, too many wildfires, too much flooding, a prolonged and perhaps irreversible drought in southern India (otherwise called desertification), and an insect die-off some are calling apocalyptic.
Today I feel a bit like I'm feeding crows, drinking tea, and waiting for the world to end, but Sean remains hopeful. Perhaps that's because he's always had a good heart.
Dr. Ceallaigh S. MacCath-Moran holds hold B.A. in Celtic Studies from the University of Toronto, an M.A. in English and Creative Writing from the University of Maine, and a PhD in Folklore from Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador. She is also an author, poet, and musician under the name C.S. MacCath. Her long-running Folklore & Fiction Project integrates these passions with a focus on folklore scholarship aimed at storytellers, and she brings a deep appreciation of animism, ecology, and folkloristics to her own storytelling. You can find her online at csmaccath.com, folkloreandfiction.com, and linktr.ee/csmaccath.
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