QUOTE AND TOTE
Courage to Carry with You
“On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me six geese-a-laying.”
Looking for inspiration to begin my Substack, I’m going with geese! The carol of the twelve days of Christmas reminded me of what happened to an abandoned gosling on our daughter’s farm, so I’m sharing that true story today, December 30, which is the day after the five gold rings. Got to start somewhere, right?
I’ve been writing since I was a kid in Northfield, Minnesota, keeping journals and scrawling poems. Lately, I write nonfiction, such as essays and articles for magazines and newspapers. This year, my memoir, Reconfigured, was published by She Writes Press and is available wherever books are sold. You can also see an excerpt of my memoir, “Me and the Mountain,” online in The Seattle Times. (They published it on May 28, 2023.)
Because my book came out in July, I say it’s a beach read. Like a sandy beach, it has grit, meaning serious stuff like medical and personal challenges. But it also has humor, like the Barbie Dream Hearse I encountered as I awaited my cancer diagnosis. My memoir is also a kind of love letter to the Pacific Northwest, where I live now.
Life is weird and full of both tragedy and comedy, the ordinary and the extraordinary. I hope you’ll join me here on Substack for my monthly essays, thoughtful quotes, and a dose of courage to carry you where you want to go. (Thus the “Quote and Tote” title of my Substack.) My first few Substack essays are free, so we can get to know each other.
Imprinting: George Archibald, Konrad Lorenz, and Mozart the Gander
"Friendliness is one of the main translations of the Pali word metta or lovingkindness. The love and understanding of a friend, like a deep well of the purest water, refreshes the very source of our being." Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha, p. 297
My daughter, Emily, and I used to visit the International Crane Center in Baraboo, Wisconsin, and later worked there briefly as volunteers. We learned of the work of George Archibald and Ron Sauey to save endangered crane species, especially the whooping crane, from extinction. With only thirty known whooping cranes left in the world, it became crucial to breed Tex, a female crane in captivity. Trouble was, she was imprinted on humans from an early age and had no interest in flirting, much less mating, with her own kind. But George caught her interest! He was the only one she liked.
So they would dance.
During mating season, George got up every morning and walked with Tex over a grassy hill of the Crane Foundation. She was, in a way, his crane wife, (also the name of a popular folk tale in Japan). The whooper was always delighted to see him. Together they would do deep knee bends and flap their appendages in the brisk Wisconsin air. Whooping cranes are four to five feet tall and have six to eight feet wing spans. Tex could hold her own with Dr. Archibald! The couple danced every spring for three years. Eventually, George’s assistant was able to artificially inseminate the bird as her attention was on George. George Archibald kept Tex company day after day and, like in the Japanese folk tale, his “crane wife” returned the favor. She laid a fertile egg! The egg hatched into a chick named Gee Whiz carrying on Tex’s genetic line.
Though whooping cranes now number in the hundreds, they are still rare and endangered. You can see wild cranes in the wetlands of Wisconsin, and you can sometimes see cranes of all fifteen species at the International Crane Foundation.
People over the centuries have no doubt observed the way newly hatched birds have a tendency to bond with both their own kind and humans. Konrad Lorenz (1903-1989) specialized in studying this behavior known as imprinting. Working with greylag geese, he stayed with some hatching eggs until the goslings emerged from their shells so that he was the first animate object they saw. The goslings attached to him as if he were their mother, following him all around.
Emily’s fiancé, Alex, had a similar experience with one of their geese on their Duck Duck Goose Farm on Whidbey Island. One spring day Alex heard a peeping in the grass a short distance from the nesting area of the geese. He found a tiny hatchling, cold and wet, and wondered how he got separated from his mother. When Alex returned the little guy to his mom, she pushed him away. As Alex put it, he “shopped” the gosling around to the other geese moms and none would take him.
So Alex took the fluff ball inside the house, dried him off, and fed him. Warmed up, the little goose kept chirping for attention, so Alex turned on some music to try to calm him down. When a piece by Amadeus Mozart started to play, the gosling was entranced and peaceful. So Alex named him Mozart.
After that, Mozart liked being with humans and had to be babysat at all times. In fact, on Mother’s Day, Emily showed up for our celebration at our house, handed me the fluffy, peeping baby, and said, “Happy Mother’s Day!” He was my first grandchild, as it were. I tended to him while she and Alex cooked a nice dinner. At the Greenbank Pantry and Deli, you can see where Mozart’s image is painted (by our daughter Steph Terao) under the store sign on the side of the building. He’s now the mascot of the deli where Emily and Alex work, because he spent so much time in the yard there while they set up their new business.
A year later, one-year-old Mozart bonded with a Roman tufted goose, and she laid a nest full of eggs. Their offspring imprinted on their parents and followed them all over the farm. Even though Mozart is now an excellent father and well-adjusted gander, he still greets Alex and Emily with a big spread of his wings, happy to see them.
As one of my mentors, Paula Underwood, used to say, what may we learn from this?
From George and Tex, I am reminded to dance. Sometimes it’s more than fun and exercise; it can be a bonding experience and help continue the species!
As for imprinting, beware! Don’t follow every animate object that catches your eye or soothes your vulnerabilities. It is disturbing to know that the Austrian Konrad Lorenz was an active member of the Nazi party during WWII. With that in mind, the charming photographs of him with lines of devoted ducks or geese behind him conjure up the kick step march of German soldiers saluting Hitler. If someone appeals to our instincts and takes advantage of our innocence, we may be recruited as devoted followers. This is not usually done with our best interests at heart.
What about Mozart? He found no kindness in the nest as a gosling, but due to human kindness became an attentive parent himself. When nurtured with love, we fly higher than our origins. With fluffiness and fortitude, we bring smiles to those who raise us and help us through hard times.
Barbara Wolf Terao, Ed.D.
Author of Reconfigured: A Memoir
On Facebook as Barbara Terao
Wise as always, Barbara! I especially appreciate the caveat "Don’t follow every animate object that catches your eye or soothes your vulnerabilities."
Looking forward to more.
Barbara, I love this so much. This line captures exactly how I feel: "Life is weird and full of both tragedy and comedy, the ordinary and the extraordinary." Also, as you wisely point out, "fluffiness and fortitude." Can't wait to read more!