Freyja Fly By

March 28th 2024

“I made a hammer at work, did I tell you?”

My husband’s been saying something along these lines for the last couple of weeks when he comes through the door in the evenings.

“I did some more welding again today!”

“Hell yeah!” I’ll respond, “Tig? Mig? Frig?”

I’m not a welder, and technically speaking neither is he. That is until he started messin' around and found out he’s pretty friggin good at it!

We were sitting at our fire pit Saturday night, chitchatting and listening to Minus the Bear, having a cozy nostalgic evening when he shared he’d made this hammer at work.

“I found the head and hammered a handle down to fit it in there, it’s in the truck-”

“I wanna see it!” I squealed.

He grinned and set his glass of tequila on the grass,

“Hold on lemme go get it.”

Hopping up from his chair he let the screen door slap behind him.

When he set it at my feet I just looked at it, then back at him, then back at the hammer.

Authors Photo

“Are you serious? I thought you were sayin’ you just shoved a wooden handle into the thing. This is like…welded and professional!”

“It’s Mjölnir!” he laughed.

I tried to casually lift it with one hand but the hammer clung to the earth as my shoulder jerked in its socket.

“Holy shit that’s heavy!”

He’d made it so he could split the logs into kindling with just one or two swings, letting the weight do the work for him.

He went and grabbed a fresh piece of firewood to try it out.

We were laughing and toasting to his success when a hawk swooped down from behind him and coasted over our heads so low and slow that even in the dark, I could see all the spots on her round belly!

My mouth hung open as I took in the gigantic wingspan.

She was so close we could have reached up and brushed her feathers.

We glared at each other, coming back to our words.

“THAT WAS A FRIGGIN HAWK!”

“That was Freyja!” Joe hollered.

We scanned the tree line trying to spot where she perched, and then back at each other, our mouths agape.

“That was amazing!”

“Right!?”

“I mean yeah I’ve seen hawks flying over me before but not like SWOOP DOWN directly over my head!”

“That was SO cool.”

“I guess she approves of your hammer.”

Joe stared into the fire as it popped and sizzled, his eyes twinkling and curving into crescents as he grinned.

“Yeah, I think you’re right.”

I love you. Thank you for reading!