family expressions

“Think how the other person must feel.”

/ janpriddyoregon / 7 Comments

My mother said those words to me hundreds or thousands, or perhaps only a few dozen times. They were the words that stuck, the instruction that carried over into my dreams where I routinely switch characters. I might be me for a while, but then the other person. I consider how the other person feels. This hasn’t always meant I was as kind or considerate as my mother intended. It did mean that I sometimes see another’s side so clearly that I feel what they feel. That is what I like to think she hoped for.

Oystercatchers make a sound like a squeaky toy. We know this pair at Hug Point very well, and have watched them successfully raise their babies. The black oystercatcher (Haematopus bachmani) doesn’t eat oysters in our area because we have none locally. According to Wikipedia, “It forages in the intertidal zone, feeding on marine invertebrates, particularly molluscs such as mussels, limpets and chitons, but also on crabs, isopods and barnacles.” You can see barnacles and mussels in the photo. What you can’t see in this photo, taken predawn, is the oystercatchers’ red beaks, reddish legs, and bright eyes in dark gold and red-rimmed like enamel on copper.
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