My familiar

Just as I walked back into the house this morning with the dogs, the Cooper's hawk that hunts around our bird feeders was sitting placidly on the fence that divides our yard from our neighbor's.

Large as an upright cat but twice as majestic, with brown stripes on his chest and feathery white covers on his sharply clawed ankles, the hawk is not afraid of me. He barely glanced at me as he eyed a couple of small squirrels who were scurrying for cover. Only when I shooed him did he deign to look at me for one moment before he flew away, vanishing among the towering trees. But I know he left only because the squirrels were now successfully out of reach inside the leafy branches of our small apple tree.

Wow, to have the hawk's self confidence even in the face of heavy odds against you, I thought.

Yesterday, when I stopped at the bird food store to replenish my stock, the owners and I got into a conversation about hawks after I told them about our Cooper's.

"They are successful only one in 20 times," the owner said.

I commented that although I'd seen the hawk many times around our yard for the past few years, I'd never actually seen it catch anything. They suggested that it must be a juvenile, who's still learning the art of efficient and lightning-fast killing. But he (or she?) obviously is successful enough to be strong and healthy.

Juvenile or not, the hawk is an impressive sight and I love seeing it up close so often.

Many years ago, my Dream Reader told me that the reason I always dreamt about white sharks, Rottweilers, tigers, and other large predators was because these animals represented the strongest side of my personality. The side that draws strength from the constant struggle to overcome major odds. I liked that idea.

Recently, I was talking to a younger colleague who is very anxious about re-taking her doctoral exams.

"You're going into a tigers' den," I said, using that metaphor to describe how the exam is partly to show that one can hold one's own against five professors who are experts in one's field. "Think of yourself not as prey, because they'll smell that right away, but as a fellow tiger, even if a smaller and less powerful one."

She seemed to like the idea and said she'd call me before the exam so I could remind her that she's "a tiger."

After I left her, I realized how much I appreciate being in my 40s and being done with the soul-wringing search for a self that is confident in itself, which characterizes the 20s and the 30s of some of my best women friends and colleagues.

Today, seeing our Cooper's hawk, I again appreciated the beauty and inspiration that the strength and self-assuredness of a predator can bring, especially when we really are like fragile butterflies just edging out of their chrysalis.