DECOMPRESSION SUMMER CORNER

Happy Sunday. I just got home from tour, two days late due to the airline's difficulties with storms in the central and eastern parts of the United States. I’m fairly dead on my feet but I’ve been pushing myself to plant some flowers on the porch where I write a lot. After 9:30 a.m. the summer sun is high enough that the porch is mostly shaded and the breeze blows through. I can snuggle in here all day as long as I have a giant pickle jar of water next to me. I get a lot done in this chair.

Yesterday I saw a deer making her way to the pond. Her neck and body were so long that whole intermittent lengths of her disappeared amongst the green grass sea, giving her the appearance of the Loch Ness Monster doing a running stitch. She threaded the grass with odd, forward-bobbing arcs. Grace can be herky-jerky too. I’m reminded of the bittern and its bizarre neck movements. They have a lot in common, these two. I call the deer “Slinky.” She is a wheatish gold-red. Her huge ears flash like oars coming up out of the water. She is as gracefully nonchalant as a seahorse treading ocean water with its impossible appendages. She nibbled at leaves along the pond, wagging her tail like a delighted puppy, probably to shoo the flies away.

To my surprise I saw her again this morning as a thunderstorm started. She was making her way toward the treeline, away from the pond with a little haste, flashing the white of her tail. She bounded upward and on through the grass like a kangaroo. Suddenly I noticed a small shape behind her, mimicking her movements – a fawn! How exciting! Yesterday she was in no hurry so the baby had stayed obscured in the grass which was quite a bit taller than it was. I had no idea. Now it was following behind her like a little duckling and practicing its danger maneuvers. It’s likely only a couple days old. The baby’s name is “Stroopwafel.” They are the exact color of one and just as sweet. It’s just the obvious choice. It’s lucky I was here to see its magnificence from my chair on the porch and report it to you.