Friday, October 5, 2012

Namaste, Odocoileus


Last night involved so much that I loved:  a few of my favorite people, including my awesome rock-star, rock-mover daughter and her fine and integrity-full bf, and C and the Linguist.  And riding the bus while knitting, and being in the room while they taped this fine podcast, and knitting there too because I'm trying to make some mittens for R, and having a drink beforehand, which is always festive with C and the Linguist, because they even order their drinks fun.  She had a Skinny Bitch, and he had a tankard of dead guy.  Right?  We laughed and ate and drank and walked through the city at night, arriving at the bus stop exactly when the bus was arriving.

It was such a nice evening, and I got home so late that I decided to skip 7 am yoga today, because, sure, I could quit any time.  I planned to sleep in, wake up slowly and write for a bit, and then garden, and then oh, right, work.  Because I’m exactly like that Yahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer, without the newborn baby and the desire to work all the freakin’ time, even when I’m bleeding and my milk hasn’t come in.  No judgment there, by the way.  Just sorrow.  

Also, there’s this other thing going on around here right now.  If you aren’t in the PNW, you might not understand, but it hasn’t rained in like 80 or a hundred days.  And that’s super fucking rare, and the way it goes is that if it’s nice out, you’re kind of an idiot if you don’t at least try to be outside every single minute.  Because any day now, it’s going to rain, and keep raining until next July, and it’s going to get really dark.  So we’re all desperately enjoying this last bit of sun, but it keeps going on and on and on, and frankly, we’re tired.  It’s like that deathbed scene with a loved one, where you say goodbye and it’s sad and sweet, and then the person  doesn’t die, and you see them the next day, and the next, and on and on.  It’s like that, but we're also putting off stuff, like naps and cleaning and writing and soup. 

But I woke up at 5:30 this morning, and when I say I woke up, I’d actually been awake off and on for a while, listening to a new (to me) podcast, the Savage Lovecast, because I’m trying to decide whether I can’t stand Dan Savage, or I’m a fan.  I guess it’s a bit of both, because he doesn’t ever get stuck in the doldrums of neutrality.

So I got up and ate my first breakfast and drank my first coffee, and was driving down the hill so excited to go to yoga, which I do about four times a week so it’s a marvel that it's still something to get excited about, but it is.  And then this deer leapt out in front of my car, way too late for me to do anything but slam, ineffectively, on the brakes. The deer, a sub-adult, probably the deer equivalent of the kids in my youth group, bounced on my car once, and then twice, and then leapt one final time and collapsed on the side of the road like a ragdoll. 

I saw this all happen, but didn’t really connect with it.  I wondered what I should do, and there didn’t seem to be anything to do for the deer anymore, so I drove on to yoga, feeling all the while like there was something seriously wrong with me.  Is this shock, or am I a sociopath, I wondered as I drove.  It was horrible, but it happened out there, and it wasn’t real.

When I got to yoga, Sara greeted me with a hug the way she does, and suddenly it became real, that I had just snuffed out the life of a large, innocent mammal. She dedicated our practice to the deer, and talked about how deer are keepers of the magic and all that magic has been just released into the world, and we should honor it, and, in our asana way, we did.  I’m not inclined to believe in certain animals carrying things that get released, but I love Sara greatly, and it was way more comforting than the alternative.

Because the alternative is this vague sense of dread, like I’ve caused harm in the world and this will mark a turning point in the book, where bad things start to happen.  I felt that. And then I looked back at my horoscope for this week, speaking of how crazy I am.  Yes, I write the horoscope, for myself, not believing in horoscopes one little bit, and then I look back to see what it said when shit happens.  Right, that's not crazy at all.  But what it said was this:
This week, Libra, each of your actions will start a chain of events too!  Be careful what you set in motion.
So, I’m hoping that what I set in motion was a room full of kind people doing downward dogs and warrior three together, honoring the life that was lost and the tender fragile thing that is life.  

All the people at yoga were the lovely way they are, saying things like, "That deer is so lucky it was you who hit him," and although I doubt the deer experienced any of this as luck, it was a nice thing to say just the same.

After a while in town, I came home, and felt dread as I rounded the corner where I'd encounter the scene of the crime.  And there was no deer.  Gone.  I suppose that means one of the hungry Wilderness School kids found it and made stew and shoes out of it.  If you see some  magical shoes on one of those sweet hippy children, the ones who smell of Cannabis and sweat, bow your head.


12 comments:

  1. Oh, so sad to have missed out on the magical evening with the cool people. Instead I sat in 5 different classrooms listening to 5 10-minute presentations by 5 really dedicated but very tired high school teachers. It was awesome, but probably not quite as awesome as drinking a skinny bitch with friends.

    Is it possible that the deer was just stunned, and after a yoga-class-length rest got up and went home? That's what I think happened.

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    1. I suspect there is another portal up there on Cherry Valley Road and that little teenaged deer is now snuffling amidst the chanterelles and maidenhair ferns of the year 1805, waiting for Lewis and Clark to come round the bend....

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    2. Oh, that's a nice though, LL. And yes, we missed you! It is far better to drink a skinny bitch than be one, I always say.

      And Meg, you make me laugh.

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  2. Sending some good vibes your way.

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  3. Confusing situation for sure. I just love your writing. They take me on little journeys.

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    Replies
    1. Why thank you, Ms. Moon! I love your writing too! Hope you're having a great trip.

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  4. Aww, I feel for you, and the only animal I've ever run over was a skunk, and when I went back to make sure it was dead rather than suffering, there it was, gone, so I'm not sure if I killed it and it flew off my tire into the ditch where it suffered, or whether I stunned it and it ran into the ditch and recovered, or whether it flew off into the ditch as dead as a doornail, but my car smelled like skunk for a week and I felt bad every time I drove past that spot for a long time... and I have to watch for deer ALL the time on my evening drive to my dad's nursing home, so some day I am statistically likely to mow one down, and I will think of you and not feel so alone and awful, and maybe THAT is another of the chain of events you started ...

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    1. Oh, the skunk thing sounds terrible in so many ways. It's nice to believe it ran off. May you never hit a deer on the road; that's my wish for you.

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  5. dude, when is your book coming out? i NEED it! you inspire me to keep being aware of the details, to pay attention, to notice. thanks love! xoxox jennette

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    1. Aww, thanks Jennette! I have a ton of work to do on this book, so thanks for your encouragement! xo

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  6. I'm a little tender these days, and the four skunks, two red squirrels and two possum carcasses on the road to school to pick up my daughter make me wish for alternate forms of transportation - hovercraft maybe? It was not your fault, and I'm glad you weren't hurt and your car wasn't totalled.

    Ms. Sarcastic Bastard, friend of the awesome Ms. Moon posted a few days ago a link about Sgt. Mills, who lost all 4 limbs in Afghanistan, and he said something to the effect that there is not point wondering why it happened,

    it happened because it happened.

    I've been thinking about that all day. I stopped by here to read your latest and I don't know why it made me cry, but it did. I'm as sad for the deer as I am that it happened to you and that your horoscope seemed ominous in light of the accident.

    My Dad hit a deer, he totalled his mini pickup truck and was pretty beaten up by the air bag forcing him to beat the crap out of his face (8 and 4 is the new 10 and 2!) and maybe that made me sad too, because every post I read makes me think about him a little today, and it's fall and I'm hormonal, and I spent last night with my newly divorced best friend helping her say goodbye to her 15 year old dog, who was well past time to say goodbye, and so on.

    I'm so glad you have yoga to get excited about. I've been excited about physical therapy this month, because it's really helped my neck arthritis, and my therapist is like a real therapist, not just a pt, and I was thinking just today I was a little excited about working all these latent muscles and arthritic bones. Not throwing in the towel yet, no siree.

    I'm glad the deer was gone too, I'm practical about the waste of meat, I guess, and glad you didn't have to feel any worse about it.

    Namaste :)

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