ManicDDaily

Some people think of bloggers as couch potato types, making pronouncements (or little elephant drawings), while hiding out from from the physical (i.e. non-computer-lit) world.

Not so. The prime example I can give of the active, physical-world-exploring, blogger is my daughter, Meredith Martin, a forest science student, who is currently posting a really fascinating blog about her field work in the Peruvian Amazon, http://countingcamu.blogspot.com.

Okay, so Meredith has written of the difficulties of hammocks on vibrating river boats and poorly permathrined trousers in beautiful but mosquito-crammed dusks, but recently I had my own encounter with blogging peril.

It happened last night, shortly after I arrived in the countryside of Upstate New York. Since I was staying in a house without internet access, I determined to hike (about a mile and a half) to the yard of someone with a good router. I was warned of rain, so carried a large ziplock bag for my iPad, The fact that it was rapidly growing dark was also brought to my attention, and that there was a car I could use. But my legs (ahem!) were really tired of sitting.

I walked fast, rolling along in the weird MBT shoes that I am pretty sure are causing severe knee problems. My knees were fine in that moment though and the occasional drops of moisture in the air seemed to have blown rather than dropped my way.

Sure, it was pretty dark under the canopy of trees on the long driveway I had to walk up, but I could see the yard with internet access in the near distance, and it looked lighter there.

Then, boom, something soft but big hit me quite hard in the side of the head, and then brrrmmm, ruffled on.

I have to admit the hit came as a shock. A bird flew into my head? Then the word “bat” came to mind. And “rabies”. And with rabies the image of dozens of shots in my bare (jiggling with fear) belly.

Maybe walking up here in the near dark had not been such a good idea after all.

But, if you are determined blogger, what do you do?

The only course, of course, was to proceed to the online access. (I’m sorry if whatever I typed in last night didn’t make much sense. All the time I was troubled by a throb both on the surface of my head–where I’d been hit–and on the inside: was it a bat?)

My brain filled with sad commentary from my prospective funeral–if only she’d gotten the shots; if only she’d taken the car; if only she hadn’t posted her silly blog that night.

I walked back onto the long dark drive, vest draped over head. I held my arms over my head too, clapping lightly. Noise of some kind seemed called for–I thought of turning iTunes on, but my habitual favorite “Anything Goes” didn’t quite go with all this.

As I walked by the spot of the dive-bombing, I heard a heavy brrrum of wings to my side.

After the instantaneous clutch, my heart lightened. So, bird then, definitely bird, must be a bird; bats don’t brrrmmmm.

A turkey, my husband said later. (And he wasn’t talking about me.)