For all his storied skill at twist endings, William Sidney Porter (AKA O. Henry) never mastered the surprise beginning. And yet, here I was at the O. Henry Hotel in Greensboro, NC, having had only half a day’s notice to get there. The hotel itself was filled with unexpected delights, from its dark-wood lounge...
...to the free copy of the namesake’s book in the room.
And so, when my event ended in the early afternoon, I went out into the blistering heat -- mentally adding bloggers to the short list that included mad dogs and Englishmen -- to walk to the nearest potential site for an interesting bench: Bog Garden. I was determined to find a surprise ending to the outing.
The garden itself was an anomaly. Acres of soggy forest are not what one anticipates in the middle of office complexes and shopping centers. On my chosen bench, I watched a blue heron serenely stalk in still water only a short distance from a Harris Teeter.
As I strolled the twisting boardwalk through the wetlands, I came across a man pointing a zoom lens at the dense foliage. “What are you trying to shoot?” I asked.
“That, over there,” he answered, pointing to a large bird on a distance branch. I recognized it from books as a barred owl, and just as quickly regretted that I don’t travel with my telephoto lens.
We talked for a while. His name was Tom and he was an avid birder and amateur photographer. He regularly visits the bog with camera in hand since, he said, it the best place in Greensboro to see birds of all kinds. That owl, I thought, would be the perfect surprise to wrap up this post, but it was just too far away. I thanked Tom for the insights and started back, disappointed.
Can we plan for surprises? I think we can in two key ways. First, we can put ourselves in situations where unpredictable things happen. Step outside one’s comfort zone, even if it means a hot walk in the midday sun. We wall ourselves in with predictability. Sometimes we need to scale those walls.
And then, we need to decide what a surprise is. If we had the facility to recognize the extraordinary nature of seemingly ordinary things, our days would be filled with wonder. Is it any wonder that children are so easily amazed?
Perhaps I just needed to find something a little less remarkable than a shot of a barred owl in the daytime.
That’s when I heard someone calling me.
It was Tom. I hurried back along the boards and found him. “I wasn’t sure you heard me,” he said, quietly. “But he’s moved.”
And there was the owl, sitting within the reach of my lens. It was in just the right place for a surprise ending.
Just like me.
Porter would be proud.
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