The other day, when I was biking, I saw a herd of deer…
Please note that the transcript below has received more edits than usual for clarity and smooth reading vs speaking. Any words or phases that are not accurate to the actual narration are in parenthesis. Listen to the episode here or wherever you listen to podcasts*. Transcription is below.
S1 E5 Transcript (with Minor Variations)
Hi friends. It’s been a while since my last podcast. Sometimes that happens. Work, or life, or circumstances get in the way of art, and fun and conversation. It’s good to be back.
One reason for the delay, honestly, has been my headspace. It was worse these last few weeks, but I often get melancholy in the fall. I love the season, I love the changing of the leaves and the temperature and just the vibe, but the older I get the more I remember what comes afterward, and I’m not a fan of cold, or dark, or snow so deep you can’t drive through it; so, winter and I are hit and miss.
I’m trying to be more present in the season, which you can probably already tell is a theme for my life. The more I exist in the here and now, with just a little attention given to the past and the (future), the better the here and now is.
So, some happy, immediate things:
- I joined the gym, which is very exciting. I used to be pretty regular before the pandemic, but…obviously a lot of things changed (during that time)
- I planted herbs that I’m going to try to grow in my house. I got them free, so it’s going to be an experiment, but I might have green, fresh things to eat all winter that I didn’t have to get from a grocery store.
- And the other day, when I was biking, I saw a herd of deer.
The second it happened, I wanted to tell you about it, because it was so cool! I have a usual biking route that goes past a cemetery, and one moment I was huffing down the trail and the next, holy moly, there they were off to my left. There was one buck with kind of smallish antlers and three or four does, I didn’t count exactly.
Now, I definitely don’t live in a big city by any means, but I don’t think of where I live as the country. Maybe a medium-sized town? No matter how you slice it, seeing deer up close and personal isn’t particularly normal in our urban area.
I don’t really know how they get to the cemetery. I feel like there are roads that are kind of big all around it.
They were twenty, maybe thirty feet away from me, and just grazing. I stopped my bike and I even (got off) it and kind of crept closer to watch them for a few minutes – which I’m sure was unnerving for the deer, but how often do you see that many so close? While I was stopped, a fawn came out of the brush toward the rest of the herd and it still had its spots. It was so cute.
I headed out back on the trail after a few minutes, afraid I’d disturb them if I stayed too long. I kind of got close enough that they all put their heads up and they were watching me like “Oh man, is that a PREDATOR? I don’t know,” and so I left.
But as I was biking away another deer crossed my path. It was also so cool.
It also reminded me of another time I encountered deer on a biking path. A few years ago I lived in a town – and this one is pretty definitely a small town – where I could bike to work on a trail that had been created out of the old railroad track. There were tall trees on either side and just this boundless straight range until I had to cross the road. So, (one day) I saw something coming toward me on the trail that I thought was a really big dog.
I thought, “Wow, what is that? It looks like a big dog.”
But it turned out it was a deer. As I got closer I could tell and it was running toward me, and I was biking toward them, and I am not sure who was the most freaked out.
I wasn’t sure what to do, either. Do you stop? Pull over? Keep going? I’ve heard of deer running into cars, but not into bicycles. What do you even do in a situation like that?
For good or ill, in a situation like that, I tend to keep going.
Fortunately, he peeled off back into the woods around the trail before he got to me, but it was a good reminder that nature is right there sometimes, doing its own thing. And sometimes we should just stop and admire it and sometimes we should get out of the way. And sometimes we have to keep going.
Whatever brings wonder to your life this fall, whether that be a random herd of deer in a cemetery or a pleasant surprise encounter, I hope that when it happens you are able to stop and appreciate the moment. I hope that your October has been absolutely wonderful so far, that you have been able to enjoy some sunlight, that your weather has been perfect, and that you have been able to live in that moment.
As always, thank you for listening.
*As of writing, Known As Belén is available on the following podcasting platforms: Spotify, Anchor, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, RadioPublic, Stitcher, Reason, and Amazon Music (please let me know if this one doesn’t work). If more platforms are added, that will be reflected in future post updates.
