Been dealing with little devils......haven’t written for a month…fighting frustration…but not defeated yet…continuing with this year’s goal of productive purging, I charged up to the attic - a forgettable dumping ground with a very small window of opportunity to work in if you know New England weather extremes - with my skin, nose and eyes being indiscriminate hosts to all things allergic and my long limbs telescoped into unnatural configurations…it began…then moved out into the landscape where hardy and nasty weeds seem to flourish in the blink of an eye and the climate seems to have fast-forwarded to mid-August - Atlas losing his grip, leaving Connecticut on a tropical cant…I came away with bruised muscles, respiratory distress, scratches, poison ivy and whole new list of purges…and through the window I see a big white butt cruising through the backyard brush…ire wells up – I did not work so hard to create a salad bar - then I see a fawn frantically following…it may have gotten stuck in the old wire fence, so I am obliged to investigate…on my approach, it collapses its legs in self-defense… its body and breathing tinier than I imagined…I am meeting my enemy…knowing nature, I look but don’t touch…there is safe egress…Mama will return. In having the capacity to smile and coo at things smaller than ourselves, we recognize innocence fresh from Eden, project hope onto them and invent happiness…there is no way of knowing what this innocent will turn into, what fate will befall it, if it will bring grief or harm to me…or me to it…that goes for my own children, too.
For me, the struggle remains process versus product…to be conscious of joy in the job, the focus of the moment…which is why I didn’t have a camera…which is why there is no fawn photo to go ‘viral’ on the web…which is why I can only show you where it was...
