I saw him last night. He was dressed up, in his way. Wearing his crow and even an eye patch. It always amuses me when he wears the patch. Gives him a rakish look. Implies that he can see something. And maybe he can.

We’ve been talking, recently, about skydiving. I’ve been trying to describe the free feeling in free fall, and Ty has been telling me the birds’ version of it. But when I explained the body high, from having your weight hang unsupported by your skeleton, that seemed to get him. I guess the birds don’t feel that.

Last night when I met him, he wanted more discussion about diving. But I was pretty obsessed then about Chris. Sure, objectively I hear everything my mother says about fish in the sea and how I’m only nineteen and have my whole life ahead of me, but I know (and I guess Ty does too) how much the relationship means to me. I want it to work, and I was thinking I might have blown it.

I walked with Ty and he heard me reproach myself for not learning. That launched him into a talk about creatures only learning what they have to learn. He said that cliff-dwelling birds don’t even learn to recognize their offspring; as long as they can find their nest they can safely assume it contains their chicks. On the other hand penguins raise their chicks in flocks. So they have to learn to recognize their babies or they’ll waste their energy feeding creatures who aren’t theirs.

I didn’t have much patience last night. I told Ty it would be weird not to know your own kid, but that didn’t help me solve my Chris problems. Then I watched him talk to the crow. Ty didn’t actually speak to the bird but there did appear to be something going on, bird-to-blind man.

The crow voiced sounds for a minute or so into Ty’s ear. And then Ty told me with a smile that Chris and I would be all right. In fact, he said he couldn’t give me specifics, but he saw Chris in my life for the rest of my life, and he understood that I would be satisfied with the nature of the relationship.

Sweet. His words really did make me feel better. A kernel of warm happy energy opened in the core of me, flowered out, and the next thing I knew I was blurting an invitation to dive. The words were out before I understood them. I almost laughed. But he quickly accepted, and I thought: why not? I do all the work in a tandem jump …

We’re going to the drop zone in a few hours. Ty is meeting me at the park. We may have to clean him up a little first. I can almost see us on our way, my car ringed by escort birds. But I called Chris this morning. We talked while I watched Barking Man pass by the front of my place. We’re getting together tonight. I think things are going to be okay.