“Sorrow & Shrike”

Okeechobee Co., FL.

11-Nov.-2022

Have you ever had a place creep into your heart and take root there—slowly, unnoticed, with tiny creeping tendrils, small enough to weasel their way into every crevice? So deep, so entwined, that you don’t even realize it has become a permanent part of you—of your identity.

Have you ever had to leave that place? And suddenly become aware of just how deeply it has rooted itself, when leaving feels like you’re leaving a piece of yourself behind, too?

My first job after college was that place—and this is likely the first of many pieces to come from that feeling.

It was a wildlife technician job in Okeechobee, Florida. I was undecided about taking it. In the months leading up to graduation, I’d been convinced I would be getting the hell out of Florida. Taking this job felt, in some ways, like stepping backward—or at least away from the path I thought I was meant to follow.

It was in a small park near Lake Placid, not long after my interview, that I sat trying to make the decision. I know how ridiculous this sounds, but what confirmed it for me was the shriek of a shrike.

Shrikes—also known as butcher birds—have fascinated me since I first learned of their existence. At that moment, I sat alone in a park in a town that felt foreign to me, facing a choice that would quietly set the stage for the rest of my professional life. I was twenty-three, newly graduated, staring down what felt like the rest of forever.

And then, a shrike screamed from the live oak above me.

I had only seen one once before, and only in passing. But here was one directly overhead. Then I noticed another—and another. Their sharp, jarring calls rang out around me, filling the branches.

Suddenly this unfamiliar place felt less like foreign ground and more like the beginning of an adventure. And in that moment I knew, with a plain and simple certainty, that this was where I was meant to be.

Many moons later, that same place had a stranglehold on my heart. And that same place had become a crossroads.

I knew it might be time to leave. There were many things pulling me elsewhere. But on a gray, overcast afternoon, with wind brushing through the golden broomsedge so softly it looked like a billowing ochre sea, I saw another shrike perched quietly on a branch.

And somehow, I knew again.

The first shrike had felt like a promise. This one felt like a farewell.

The realization hit like a sucker punch to the gut. It stole the wind from my lungs, twisted my throat, burned like I’d swallowed wrong. I cried. I sat there in stillness, trying to drink in every sight I could hold onto.

Years have passed, and I wish I could say the feeling has faded. In some ways it has changed—I owe so much to that time, to the people I met there, to the path it set my life upon.

But sometimes I still wonder if I made the right choice. How can the right choice hurt so much?

Then again, I would never have seen all that I have if I’d stayed. I wouldn’t have done the work I’ve done or touched the lives I have since.

So I’ve come to believe that pain like that doesn’t linger to punish us. It lingers to remind us who we are—and the people and places that shaped us. Those memories tether us to our core, where love and loss often wear the same face.

And when those old pangs of longing return, I try to remember that.

Though, of course—I’m only human.