Do you prefer the city or the country?
06 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: beauty, city, country, memoir, memory, wilderness
Neither.
Now I’ve got you guessing. Good! How can someone not like either the city or the country. The answer to that lies in a definition.
To most people ‘country’ is farmland, rolling hills, plains and somewhat distant from the hustle and bustle of city life. To some, a small town is a city. To me? Well, to me ‘country’ is dense forests, jagged mountains, babbling brooks and roaring rivers. ‘Country ‘ is climbing rough trails, stopping to catch my breath or regain my footing.
Ah yes, the country. Fragrant wildflowers, perky pines, deer jumping over bushes here and there. There’s nothing like the shocking tartness of a wild raspberry and the smooth glide of the perfect skipping stone plucked out of the very river it was skipped in, having been polished by years of rushing water and sediment.
Beauty is everywhere to behold in this glorious place of my memories… Let me share with you a story about a doe.
She stood at the far end of the pond I walked by on my way to school every morning. I was eleven, she was a young doe, not full grown, but certainly no longer a fawn. There was a small group of her fellow deer surrounding her, all does but for one solitary buck with a meek 4 point rack. As I walked past on my usual route I glanced at this group and at first thought nothing of it. She looked up at me, her head snapping to attention like a little deer soldier. Did I mention it was snowing? There was about ten inches of snow on the ground and the pond was frozen over. Such a beautiful sight…
I had begun to stare for a moment as I thought it was interesting that only this one doe cared to pay any attention to my passing. She stared back. I stopped walking and stood with my back pack hanging over my right shoulder, and I just stared… and stared. She took a step, then another. A moment later she came trotting around the pond, stopping maybe a dozen feet away. Cautiously she takes a few steps closer… closer still.
I watch in awe as this young doe stops only a few feet away from me. Finally she takes one more step. I could have touched her nose had I dared. We were locked in this seemingly endless gaze, curiosity and awe transferring between our thoughts. For a moment I was sure we were thinking the exact same thing, that thought being “I think I know you.”
Reluctantly I took a step back, I had to get to school. She turned quickly and hopped quickly back to her friends, turning back to watch me walk away while the others grazed on the tufts of grass here and there without a single concern. Every few steps I would turn to look back, she would chomp a bite of tall grass here and there, and look back up to watch me walking away. I was sure neither of us wanted me to leave.
I doubt the little deer is still alive, I’m 26 now and goodness knows there were plenty of hunters in Montana. It is a sad thought, but realistic nonetheless. Regardless, I’ll never forget that magical moment, when two worlds collided in perfect tranquility. Perhaps she was a human in a past life, or I a deer. But that’s a whole other conversation…
Beautiful is not the word to do justice for this miraculous world I miss so dearly. Nor is country… Nonetheless, country, wilderness, forest, mountains; this is the world I prefer greatly over the city, noise, hustle, bustle and commerce. The wilderness sings the song of my soul. What beat does your heart groove to?
