I don’t seek epiphany—who would look to the common coot, Fulica americana, for omens or inspiration?—but I take delight in their presence, at first glance a lumpen black mass with dollops of white, but at a closer look it’s just their heads that are black and the bills white; their bodies are slate gray, their legs yellow-green, their unfurled wings edged with a band of white rick-rack, cookie-cutter punchouts, identical, it would seem, for coots are a study in uniformity, their behavior as well as appearance—they walk, not waddle (and squawk, not quack—they’re not ducks), scoot and scamper almost as one, shift on an unseen unheard signal and scurry from grassy bank to water’s edge to floating flotilla and back again, always in multitudes (called a cover or raft), unlike the lone heron, the great blue, outlined against the bay, striking a pose for gawkers who gasp at its majesty, whereas even a horde of coots, much less an unassuming outlier, won’t claim the rapt attention of any but the likes of me, a solo walker looping eight miles around the bay at a brisk pace, my mind in free-form, now the rotation of my hips, now the outline of my next essay, now the sea birds, coming in and out of focus, leading me to muse on the sobriquet “old coot”— affectionate or insulting?—usually applied to men, but I’m an old coot myself as I bob along the path, enriched by their company, not asking them for anything except to be there.
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Alice Lowe’s flash prose has appeared this past year in Hobart, JMWW, Door is a Jar, Sleet, Anti-Heroin Chic, and Burningword. She’s had citations in Best American Essays and nominations for The Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Alice writes about life, literature, food, and family in San Diego, CA.