Be mine, mine, mine, mine, mine!

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Leave it to Disney to very simply capture and create a memorable character with a single word. The seagull from Finding Nemo turned a bird many people find annoying, into an icon of cuteness. It’s true that seagulls are viewed as pesky kleptomaniacs, and constantly seem to bicker amongst themselves over whose food is whose, but there is more to this species than meets the eye.

Now if you have read my articles before, you have probably ascertained that I have a mushy gushy heart and, February is the month of MUSHY, the month filled with love. Not just Valentine’s Day, but Family Day as well. So I bet you are wondering how a bird known for scavenging, stealing, disruptive squawking and pooping on everything (which is apparently good luck?), could possibly represent love? Well, believe it or not all those characteristic actually embody it.

There are eight or so different Families that frequent Kamloops and surrounding area. The California, Herring. Thayer’s, Ringed billed and Glaucous-winged are the most common and typical in appearance when people think of a Seagull; Stark white chest, neck and underbelly encased by soft grey wings with a red strip on the tip of the lower mandible. Differences are subtle. Greenish legs on the California, pink on the Thayer’s. The Herring’s tail is black with white spots similar to the RingBilled who has a bold black ring around its bill (hence the name).

Two not so common are the Franklin’s and Bonaparte’s gull which are easier to identify due to their Black heads and white eye rings when breeding.

Believe it or not, Seagulls are very smart birds and Family is important to them. They mate for life and tend to return to the same spot to breed.

Both parents take turns incubating and caring for the eggs and nest and hatchlings won’t be allowed to leave until they are very capable fliers and feeders. Most Juvenile Gulls are speckled greys and browns and easy to spot amongst the adults.

Gull Parents pass down knowledge and teach their offspring important skills to aid in successful flying and food foraging.

They will also teach fellow Gulls and work together in groups to adapt new techniques and are known to be some of the most skilled fliers capable of mastering intense winds and thermals.

Because of this team and family dynamic, Gulls have developed very complex forms of communication that is both vocal and body involved. Positioning of wings and body movements alongside those annoying squawks are all used to relay information from the position of a school of fish, or helping to pester another bird into dropping its catch, or teaching a technique, or sharing new information or simply keeping in touch.

To me that behaviour speaks of caring, a caring that is not solely about the survival of self but of the species, the Family. Many might argue that idea and chalk it up to instinct and survival, but I believe there is a choice in it all. Daniel and I watched one day as a Gull positioned himself between two other gulls and his female mate so she could freely feed off the French fries on the ground. His concern wasn’t about himself. I know we often brush aside “commercialized” holidays, but instead of loathing them, maybe take the opportunity to really evaluate if your behaviour and caring has become more of a habit and routine or a choice. Do your family, friends, or loved one truly know how much they mean to you? Are you doing the best you can to get them that French fry or potato chip?! We often choose to give back and contribute when we are given and contributed too, thus creating a cycle of caring and interacting that leads to an overall element of success.!

Stay Curious Kamloops and never stop passing down your love!

Jay knew everyone kept secrets of one sort or another, but she was sure no one had as profound a secret as she kept. She’d listened as a near-stranger spoke to a crowd about the possibility of making certain unattainable dreams come true. But, still, Jay hid her dream; she was sure it could never come true. An odd gut feeling, however, assured her that the timing would be just right, some day, when just the right person would approach with encouragement. Since she’d never met anyone she deemed confidential enough to be completely open with, she dismissed the dream… until she met me.

It was the 50’s, and I was dabbling in the arts with no real direction or goals. I considered the business look; dressing for success meant that I didn’t even own a shift or a typical plaid, button-down-thefront shirtwaist dress. I would at least look like I was good at something! The intriguing thing was that my new friend, Jay, had similar quirks. She hadn’t set any specific goals for herself either and, together, we imagined creating fodder for fiction. We shared our innermost secrets in that regard.

For instance, Jay suggested strolling, in her imagination, down long halls over Persian rugs. In our crazy little conversation, I went one further and plucked, from my imagination, a vision of me slinking over the patterned paisley of the fine carpeting and seeing the little dimples from my stilettos winking at me as if to heal the wounds of negativity! Through the power of friendship, it was revealed to us both that we were normal, boy crazy but normal.

As Jay and I matured and took apartments near the college, whenever we got together we’d talk over compelling scenarios while ignoring the dishes in the sink and laundry spilling from hampers. With others, however, we kept our secrets in check, and when boyfriends gave us corsages to wear at college dances, the scent of florals served as a stepping-off point from reality to the realm of dreaming up fiction. We wanted to write the fantasies down but were afraid to. I never knew exactly why Jay was afraid, but I remember why I was.

As a teenager, I wrote essays for school assignments and read them aloud to my dad. He was alarmed and instructed me: “Quit writing personal things down on paper, Trudy! Never do it; that kind of stuff will incriminate you; it will come back to haunt you; it will expose too much of your truth. I’m tellin’ ya, girl; keep yer boy-crazy acrobatics to yourself!”

And, I did. I also locked up the good intentions and motivations to write and, unlike an old painting locked in an old house, I could break out at will, some day, gaze into the dusty attic of my mind, and revive the preserved ideas. I wondered if the day would ever come when I’d expose my buried passions without the trappings of self-sabotage. I longed for a crystal ball.

I’d lost track of Jay so couldn’t share the freedom of recognizing that my ‘better judgment’ allowed me to dissolve any leftover fear, from my dad’s stern warnings, and savour the scent of secrets that twinged my palate to indulge, without guilt, in the craft of writing about romance. “You could write a love story about that!” Jay had uttered with frankness. I was ready to acknowledge the statement. Why not?

Setting the scene, in my mind, of sunbeams pouring over my roll-top secretariat which, in truth, was a TVtray/table next to a wingback chair which was, in truth, a straight chair from the kitchen, I went to work.

My mind spun scenarios that surprised even me. I was actually creating a fictional story with fictional characters. All the while, the made-up parts appeared as real as the sun ray with its little flecks of dust floating in a balm from an open window. Outside, beneath the window, thorny rose bushes gave off their sweetas-kisses scent, and I knew I was on the road less traveled that Robert Frost wrote of.

The floral scents mesmerized me. Their sweet tang gave me permission to enter into a sort of clandestine meeting between my old ways and a new frame of mind. I was tossed about in a rite of passage as waves of quiet sea became turbulent and the daily-written pages turned into a finely crafted work of fiction. I ignored the risks, and it turned out that the protagonist in my story had ignored risks. She and I wondered, would this tale come back to haunt me, as my daddy had warned? Or, would the notion of no guilt whatsoever, in writing such sensual entanglements, free the writer in me?

The answer came from ‘The Artist Way,’ by Julia Cameron. In her guidebook to higher creativity, I’d found a sense of safety and ways to overcome the inner critic!

In the fresh air, I cut a swath of thorn-laden roses. Trimming and arranging them in a vessel the shape of a woman—as most vases are, their scent set free, in me, the secrets only my psyche and fountain pen had privy to. The manuscript grew like the rose garden, full of beauty but almost untouchable by thorns. It was a humble effort, and on a chilly day in February a love story of vulnerability

Story by Rita Joan Dozlaw

and conflict, bordering on dangerous exotica and seduction, spilled over the parchment like smeared teardrops because the mere subject of love can sting whether real or fictitious.

I’d broken through the stigma of writing luscious details which, back in the 50’s, were too taboo for a nice person to put down on paper. It felt alright, though, and I hoped that my long lost friend, like me, had abandoned fear and enjoyed a sense of freedom to write in her fashion. I dedicated ‘Sweet Scent of Secrets’ to Jay for the early inspiration she gifted me with.