in the headlights

when you live near the country, as i do, you feel sometimes like you're in a scene from a disney movie with all the woodland creatures wandering about, including the occasional fox. so it was not that bizarre to see a spectacular deer just now, driving down a stretch of semi-rural highway near my house on my way home from cosmos and karaoke with c. but i came face to face with her. the rain is coming down fierce, so i'd dropped speed to navigate a curve ... and there she was, perched majestically on the shoulder, looking knowingly into my eyes. it was one of those instances when time slows right the fuck down and you feel like you're living an elongated eternity in just one fleeting moment. and in that surreal split second of locked gaze with this deer, i felt i truly understood her: beautiful independent creature. drenched. scared. alone. wondering where the fuck she was, how she got here, and where she's going. enough with the high beams already you crazy muthafucka, i'm just barely hanging on here trying to make my way to whatever's over on that side.

i feel ya sister, i thought to myself.