14. State Bird

The state bird of Oklahoma is the scissor-tailed flycatcher. It’s a strange-looking bird, with an unusually long tail which makes it look slightly out of balance, as if its tail is perpetually weighing it down, a drag as it attempts to fly. Much like the scissor-tailed flycatcher, our tail weighed us down all the way to Oklahoma. Remember that lovely wrought-iron fence we acquired recently? We loaded less than half of it onto a trailer, along with several totes full of random stuff, then loaded up the Honda Pilot that was pulling the trailer.

We’re pretty sure we were right at the 3500 pound towing capacity limit, so we had to stick to 55 m.p.h. all the way. I don’t know if you were driving in the 70s, 80s or early 90s, but when the speed limit was 55, it was painful. (And yes, that horrible Sammy Hagar song was going through my head.) I knew I had to follow my husband to make sure everything was OK with the trailer, but after three hours of driving 55-60, I wanted to scream. Little did I know at that point that the tension straps holding the fence down would wear down and break, forcing us to stop several times to rig the thing back together with ropes. Fortunately, my husband had chosen a flatter route that didn’t go through the Missouri Ozarks; unfortunately, it added an extra hour and a half to our route. About halfway to Stillwater, we realized that the 3 ½ hours of sleep we’d gotten the night before weren’t really sufficient to be driving that long, so we pulled over for an hour nap. We kept pumping the coffee, which of course increased the number of pit stops. All in all, what would normally have been a 10-hour trip lasted 19 grueling hours, 4:30am to 11:30pm. And then we had to unload all the things that couldn’t stay in the hot sun the next day—alcohol, food, my collection of slides, artwork, and anything else too precious to leave in a car. And my poor husband had to return to work the next morning.

Needless to say, our tailfeathers have been dragging lower than a scissor-tailed flycatcher.

The five days since we arrived have flown by faster than I could have imagined—unpacking, organizing, throwing away things we should have gone through before we left, registering our son for school, getting internet, choosing a new doctor, figuring out the best path and time of day to walk the dog, working out the rental house’s quirks with our landlady, meeting with our builder, deciding which furniture will go where and what will go into storage, etc., etc. I haven’t really had a moment’s peace to process the amazing week we had before we left town, where our dear, wonderful friends threw us parties, met us out for drinks and dinner, brought us food, helped us load things, made us sandwiches for the road, and cleaned our entire house after we left. I’m still not sure what I’ve done to deserve such unbelievable generosity, but I am grateful. Friends, dear friends, you know who you are. Know that I treasure you as my own family. Your love and support is felt 551 miles away. The scissor-tailed flycatcher forms flocks of up to 1000 birds; you, all of you, are my flock.

So, no matter how out of balance things are right now, no matter how weighed down we might feel, I know that eventually, like the scissor-tailed flycatcher who is buoyed by the upward winds, we’ll somehow make it into the air above once again.