a deer during lockdown

This one caught me by surprise. It was shot at 6:05am on my way home from dropping my fiancée off at work. The sun had almost finished rising; the streets and the trees still dripping in its golden hue.

I decided to take the scenic route home that morning. Caroline had recently been re-deployed to a new position within our municipality as hers had been deemed non-essential. She worked in a long-term care facility doing high-touch surface cleaning. I'm a teacher and off for the summer. You'd think I'd sleep in and recuperate from the awfulness that was remote learning, but there's something about the morning light that I'm always drawn to.

I drove along Lake Ontario, meandering the waterfront, slowly but surely making my way home. As I drove through the quiet streets of a small city in lockdown, there was a subtle optimism vibrating in my bones and flesh. My body was humming. A similar feeling to when you wake up Christmas morning when you're 6 years old. We're going to get out of this, I said to myself. It's happening. Things are re-opening! 2 minutes from home, I rounded the corner into a neighbourhood I actually spent much of my childhood playing in. Good ol' Meadowbrook Park. Just then, I pulled over, closing and re-opening my eyes aggressively as if to check whether I was still asleep.

In my general experience, any time I've come across one of these beautiful creatures, I am in a car. The engine noise startles them and they run back to the woods they emerged from, back from the road. This little deer, though, locked eyes with me. She stood, a deadpan gaze, watching me watching her. We stared at each other; I noticed then that she looked almost guilty, as if she had been waiting for lockdown to happen her whole life, just so she could play on the climber all by herself. I'm sure all wildlife thinks that about us humans, though. We were here first.

I drove along the curb of the park as she walked through the wood chips underneath the play structure, there to ease the fall of an unsteady child. The deer looked at me as though she could see through me: translucent like a frosted window, or cheap toilet paper. It was as if she could sense all the worries that lingered underneath my skin despite my bubbly morning mood. Her ease and confidence with me as I stalked her along the street was striking. If eyes could speak, hers were telling me it's going to be okay.

Maybe this a controversial opinion, but I’m going to share it anyway. The human race sort of needed the pandemic a bit. We, particularly in our comfy Western world, needed to be reminded that we are not invincible. We are not immune to devastation, to tragedy, to illness. There are real problems that need our help. This planet is not replaceable. We should be more concerned with the voices of Mother Nature than those narcissistic voices inside our heads. We needed to be stripped away from spending time with the ones we love, because honestly, do you remember what family gatherings and dates and girls’ nights used to look like pre-Covid? Maybe I should remind you. Our hands were glued to our phones instead of interlocking another’s. And then, we had the audacity to complain that many milestones and celebrations were forced to be digital? Even though the cyber world was where our eyes and attention were anyhow? …We needed to be shaken awake. Violently.

Systemic racism. Climate change. Mental health… so many issues became front-and-centre, glaring at us, demanding action. And while the grimace of social injustices is ugly and tragic, we need to stop looking away and instead, stare the demons we’ve created down. Just like this beauty up reminded me that pretty morning.