“Have you heard of a falcon sex hat?” the man to my left, a few tables away, asked the man in front of me at another table. I was mid-sip, trying to enjoy my latte in the back room of the Chestnut Hill Coffee Shop, when the up-until-then banal (to me) discussion on birds of prey between these two men took quite the turn. I tried not to spit my latte out when visions of falcons in fedoras or peaky blinders hats flooded my brain. Did falcons need jaunty berets to seem attractive to the opposite sex? I stayed still as silence fell between them. I mean, seriously, where does a conversation go from there?
“Does the bird wear it?” asked the man in front of me. Phew! That was MY question, but I could not answer it since I was hiding in the corner and not a part of this conversation. The man in front of me looked like Wilfred Brimley if he had been on Nutrisystem for 4 weeks—not quite an After picture, but something in-between.
I took another sip, trying to act cool.
“No. The falconer wears it,” the other man clarified. He was wearing a herringbone coat, Nike Air Force ones, and was reading his crossword puzzle with an antique magnifying class. A modern spin on Sherlock Holmes. Both men were older than I am, but by how much, I have no idea. “It is leather, and there is a little dimple in the top, and the falcon makes a deposit in the reservoir, and then they can use it for fertilization.”
Just when I thought it couldn’t get any weirder… I looked up at skinny-ish Wilfred with curiosity. He nodded. I could imagine the gears turning in his head.
As if to save us all from the awkward silence that hung in the room, Sherlock intervened. “Yeah, I have one. They are a couple of hundred bucks, but I work hard, and I can spend my money on what I want.” Umm…can you tell me you’re single without telling me you’re single? Not that there is anything wrong with being single. I am, after all, single and do not view it as an affliction or a deficit, yet this seemed different. I hope.
Wilfred did not ask any more clarifying questions, which could have been a blessing, but I will never know. (My curiosity was piqued enough to Google falcon sex hat later that day, and once I saw the pictures, I had enough. Nope. Not going down that rabbit hole.) Wilfred steered the subject toward his teaching days when he introduced birds of prey to his students. He said the little girls (his words, not mine) loved it when he discussed reverse dimorphism, the phenomenon of females being bigger than males. “They thought that was so cool,” Wilfred said.
I couldn’t stay silent anymore.
“Yeah, big girls would think that is pretty cool also. I don’t think we outgrow that,” I said, startling Wilfred and Sherlock. Perhaps they had never noticed me. I don’t know. But my interjection jarred them. I didn’t care. “And, for the record, this is the weirdest conversation I have ever eavesdropped on.” I sipped my latte and left it at that. I knew I would never see them again, and anonymity made me bold.
That conversation happened about halfway through my stay in the Chestnut Hill area of Philadelphia. I fell into a routine pretty easily during my stay there. Wissahickon Park is less than a mile away from my Airbnb, and it beckoned me every morning. After a beautiful walk in the woods, I stopped at Chestnut Hill Coffee Shop for a coffee and/or whatever else I was feeling like on a particular morning. On that morning, I made the split decision to have my latte “for here” rather than “to go,” because I was making a conscious effort to be in restaurants alone rather than retreating to my Airbnb, and that is what happened.
By that time, I had decided that Philadelphia was probably not going to be my next more permanent home. Why? I can’t really say. I had a lovely time there, and there is nothing objectively wrong with the place. It just didn’t feel right. Moving to a new place has too many data points. The Pro and Con list is way too long for the frontal lobe to deal with, so a decision like this goes to the gut. I have heard Real Estate agents say that people know within 60 seconds if a house is for them or not, well before seeing the entire house. I get it. That was the case with my house in Knoxville. I knew before seeing beyond the foyer. The rest was confirmation. So was the case with Philadelphia. It wasn’t a resounding “Yes” despite all the great things it had to offer.
When I go to a new city, I try to adopt the attitude of saying “yes to anything that won’t kill or maim me.” When locals tell me I “must see” something before I leave a place, I go. Even if I don’t think I want to put down roots in a certain place, I am there, so I might as well dig in and see stuff. And that is what I did in Philly.
I had a contact there, Amira, a college classmate I didn’t meet until this year. Our circles of friends had overlap, but not for us. She was an awesome tour guide! I met her delightful daughter, Noa, and her dogs, Ivy and Rose. We took an indoor rowing class (it did not kill me, but it made me sore) and went to the Barnes Foundation and Pat’s King of Steaks for Philly cheesesteaks (there was so much grease in that sandwich that it may kill me later), and took in a history lecture given by one of her childhood friends at her mother’s assisted living facility (made me feel young and mobile.) The lecture was fantastic, a brief history of our country’s eight-month-long Centennial celebration, which was held in Philadelphia and drew people from all over the world. After the lecture, when Amira was visiting with her mother, I chatted with the woman sitting next to me—Judy. She told me about a book she was writing that was a compilation of different stories around characters with epilepsy. Why epilepsy? I don’t know. We didn’t get there. Amira and I listened to music at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and saw a moving collection titled The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure. (I highly recommend!) I had dinner with my dear friend Monique, whose work trip to Philly coincided with my stay, and I went to a city on the Main Line to see another college friend, Jim, and his wife Megan, for dinner. When they told me I couldn’t leave the Philly area without seeing Longwood Gardens, I believed them, so I wandered through Longwood Gardens and got lost, metaphorically, in its magnificent conservatory. Jim and Megan were not wrong. I was the only person on a Constitutional Walking Tour of old Philadelphia given by Michael Stahler, in which I learned more about Benjamin Franklin than in the Ken Burns special. It was awesome. All of it.
I have found myself at the oddest times, like on a cot in a small Spanish village or walking along the beautiful Detroit Riverfront this morning or seeing the Rocky statue or being surrounded by Cezanne paintings at the Barnes Foundation feeling enormous gratitude. Gratitude overtakes me like an enormous wave washing over me and upending me. I am so grateful for my friends, old and new, who have welcomed me to their cities and homes with open arms and awesome suggestions. I have seen, learned, experienced, tasted, heard, and felt things that were not on my bingo card. Or so I thought. Thank you. It has been a trite yet true reminder to eat the greasy sandwich, wander among beautiful paintings, try something new, and say “for here” when the barista asks you. How else would I learn about falcon sex hats?