Place

I was on a trail Thursday morning jogging lightly -very lightly apparently- because I startled a big doe up close as I rounded a sharp little bend.  The surprise was mutual.  I actually heard the deer before I saw her bounding away just yards from me.  The sun caught a wall of light tan flashing between a few trees, and at the moment I saw her she was pouncing up a slight incline off the trail and away.  The green curtains closed behind her immediately.  What I’d heard and felt first, actually, was the sudden hoof pounding on the trail, rapid deep thuds, exactly like a horse, a horse that had started, reared in some frantic way, and bounded in a savage pounce away from the danger.  I do feel a little slighted that in this story I am the danger, but I know from the angle of the trail bend that the deer went from a normal beautiful forest moment to suddenly seeing fully, in her immediate periphery, a full-sized human figure jogging towards her and maybe one or two seconds from collision. So, I get why the response was electric when she grasped it. (Perhaps the sound and direction of the wind had masked my approach somehow.) I hadn’t processed the event enough to even be slowing down by the time I had heard the trail thunder and saw the flash of tan.    It was a real animal moment.  I had felt the weight of this beautiful animal, and such a presence.  And I certainly felt that I was the clear intruder.

Whoops. Sorry about that. 

I got the same feeling once when I was stranded in Hawaii due to a storm. Given an unexpected free day, I went to go snorkeling in Hanauma Bay nature preserve. I stood chest deep, adjusted my mask and snorkel, and plunged under by simply dropping down to my knees on the sand. I looked out and saw such a kaleidoscope of creatures looking back at me that I was startled and popped back up gasping. Everybody was there, to include a little octopus. I felt like I’d accidentally parachuted into a stranger’s busy and crowded living room.

And again, when I was on a cruise ship. I accidentally walked through a nondescript door and found myself in a secret long ‘service’ tunnel bustling with rapidly moving lines of service people -waitstaff and all manner of cleaning and laundry people- all carrying stuff.  I quickly scrambled back out the ‘wrong’ door after my shock and immediately realized how the ship had been teeming all along with these invisible lines of hustle in its interior steel-corridor veins.    

Feeling out-of-place is a weird thing. Whose place is this anyway? Since we all are walking through our own stories in life, shouldn’t we all be in our own place no matter where we are? In these examples above, I felt like I’d walked out of my own story for a moment . . . as if each of our lives were taking place in a book on a library shelf and I’d wandered out of my book for a moment, looking confused. Someone yelled “Hey, Perrin, you’re one shelf down and two books over!” and I thanked them and am now safely back in my own story, back on page 63-158. (The remainder of the book is blank as of yet.)

I don’t know who’s editing this book, but there are some things in the previous pages I’d like to change.  But that’s a story for another day.  Today’s page includes a turkey and avocado sandwich at Panera Bread, where I’m writing this now.  Creamy tomato soup. A small cup of hot coffee and a neat little bag of chips.  A computer screen, words, and a spilling of my odd little ruminations. 

I like this place.