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18
July – September 2013
www.deltalivingmagazine.com
By Rick Lemyre
ricklemyre@gmail.com
R
eggie wasn’t Reggie yet, but he made
sure I knew he was there. I would
later learn that he was a Stellar’s jay, a big, blue-
feathered, black-crested resident of Northern
California’s coastal forest canopies, including
the ancient oaks towering above Space 16 at
Ponderosa Campground in Los Padres Na-
tional Forest.
My trip into the woods was a sort of re-
hab exercise. I’d spent 14 years as co-founder
and editor of the Brentwood Press, and after an
amicable and mutually appreciative parting in
March, it was time to decompress.
I think of what we did at The Press as a
reverse prism, taking the many colors of the
community and blending them into a clear,
white light visible to everyone. It takes a lot
of gathering to keep the mix right, and under
the century-old trees I realized that everything
I had seen or experienced for 14 years was
stashed away in my head as part of the equa-
tion, whether it was published or not. Things
were packed pretty tight in there.
But deep in the woods there’s none of that
to consider.There are only things like the sur-
prisingly loud bird that had suddenly dropped
onto a lower branch of the canopy about 20
feet away and boldly announced“Screeaawtch!”
Stellar’s jays don’t mind you being there, but
they make sure you know you’re the visitor.
And they want to know if you have peanuts.
He stared at me, tilting his head left, then
right as he sized me up.Then, with a dramatic
whoooooshflutterflutter, he swept across my
camp and alighted on a branch directly over my
truck’s windshield.Then he relieved himself.
The windshield needed bugs scrubbed off
from the trip down anyway, so I laughed and
went about building a fire.A fire is a great thing
for thinking about things, or thinking about
nothing. I was discovering that the decompres-
sion process might take more than a few days.
One of the toughest things has been pro-
cessing the stack of correspondence I got when
I left The Press. The outpouring of apprecia-
tion, praise and outright sorrow at my depar-
ture was, and is, overwhelming. Hundreds of
messages came in from high school classmates,
people I’ve worked with and people I’ve never
met.As the sun went down, I felt proud of hav-
ing been able to touch so many people’s lives,
even a U.S. Congressman for heaven’s sake …
Suddenly, perspective dropped out of the
canopy.
“Screeaawtch!” Tilt. Tilt. Whoooooshflut-
terflutter. Poop.
If nothing else, I thought, he’s regular. He’s
Reggie.
Reggie’s second deposit helped me de-
cide to extend my stay. Washing it off would
be more work than I had done for days, so I
chose to spend another 24 hours doing noth-
ing instead.
But as twilight approached again, I acci-
dently started to think. I’d promised to write
about being a former editor, and I wasn’t ready.
I’d only begun to empty my mind, and I didn’t
think the woods had given me any insight.
Then:“Screeaawtch!”
“Reggie!”
Tilt.Tilt.
“You already got all my peanuts.”
Whoooooshflutterflutter. Poop.
It took 20 minutes to wash three direct hits
off my windshield the next morning, but I
didn’t mind. I was heading out knowing I was
blessed with a loving and supportive family,
14 years of practice on my skills, thousands of
friends, a chance to shape my future, and time
to think it all over.
But best of all, I headed out knowing that if
I ever need a dose of perspective, there’s some-
one I can count on. I can grab some peanuts,
head for Space 16, and visit Reggie.
Thanks
for Having Me