February 7, 2024
The house temperature usually drops to the lower sixties at night. This morning was no different, but I woke up feeling hot. When I got out of bed, my shirt was drenched in sweat. I felt okay, but my body was obviously not in homeostasis. I figured caffeine probably wouldn’t help, but would it really hurt? After washing up, I sat down to write, sipping my hot cappuccino.
During the afternoon, I drove into Wilson to grab some lunch, taking an alternative route through the countryside. One of the unique features of rural North Carolina are old structures you see on several properties. It might be a decrepit house or barn, but you can’t help but notice these unique works of art. People have abandoned and left these structures to dilapidate, creating a living photograph of older times. The wood, weathered over decades, looks beautiful. Some houses have collapsed and some have large trees growing inside them, with huge branches poking through broken windows or opened roofs. To me, they exemplify what the Japanese call wabi-sabi, a type of beauty that is based on what is aged and imperfect. One day, I’d like to have a coffee-table book filled with photographs of these structures.
In the evening, I went to the pine grove and sat in a ground blind near the edge of the tree line where I’d recently seen deer. The sun was touching the horizon and dusk was settling in, but there were no deer in sight. Inside the blind, I felt the chilled air seeping through the open windows. It’s easier to ignore the cold when you’re moving, but sitting still for long periods has a way of sapping your body heat.
The light was almost gone. I had my camera armed with a fast lens, but even with an F1.2 aperture, I had to crank the ISO so high that any images would be too grainy. Suddenly, about seventy yards away, I saw three does move into an adjacent field. I wasn’t sure where they came from, but they were approaching slowly, stopping occasionally to feed on the winter grasses. Ten minutes later, they were upon me.
The three does looked small; young. When they were about twelve to fifteen yards away, they stopped to feed. I sat still and quiet, snapping a few photos as my autofocus struggled in the low light. I knew the pictures would be unusable, but I enjoyed studying them to see what I could learn.
One deer never noticed me, but the other two seemed concerned. Their sensitive noses had caught my scent. I’m not sure if they could see me, as deer have excellent eyesight, even in the dark, but I kept still, trying not to move. One doe relaxed and began feeding, but the other doe tightened, stretching her head high in the air, perfectly erect with the posture of a trained dancer. She stared at me, stamping her foot as if to say, “I see you”. I remained quiet and motionless. She remained curious, occasionally breaking eye contact to feed.
The deer’s sensitivity reminded me of a horse. While living in Idaho, I had the opportunity to ride horses regularly. Horses are prey animals, and like deer, are highly sensitive to predators. They prefer to run away from danger. What most strongly connected the behavior of the horse and deer, to me, was the sheer sensitivity of the animals.
In the movies, you see people running horses, jerking on the reins, looking as if they are muscling the horse’s head to make it turn. And while the horse has a bit in its mouth that applies pressure via the reins, I think most people would be surprised at how little input a trained horse needs to be manipulated. A horse is sensitive enough to feel whether the reins are touching the left or right side of its neck. This is enough input to let the horse know which way to turn, even at a full gallop. A horse pays attention to every detail of your body's movement. It sees things about you that you don’t see about yourself. It was the same with the deer.
After about fifteen minutes, the deer moved on. When they were out of sight, I gathered my things and left the blind, heading to my house by the light of my headlamp. The interaction with the deer had been light, but it was an experience of two animals aware of each other’s presence. I studied the deer’s movements and stared into their eyes. They caught my scent and watched me intently. It was a reminder that while the wild is not overly hospitable, those who mean no harm become more tolerable with time. In nature, there is no unearned trust.