Tuesday, May 22, 2012

"How deep is your love?" ... I was asked this morning!

To mark the demise of Robin Gibb, I played "Stayin' Alive" during the short break that we typically take in a two-hour class.  It was neat to watch even twenty-year olds singing along and enjoying a song from 35 years ago.  A wonderful piece of evidence for the phenom that the song and the group were.

The Bee Gees continued to be in the news yesterday, too, which was one reason why I decided to play the Saturday Night Fever CDs during the 100K drive to work.  A contrast to my usual habit of a silent drive where my thoughts keep me busy and entertained, or how I let NPR's programs accompany me.

"How deeps is your love" had barely started playing when I whizzed past a fawn that was ambling along the tall grass by the side of the freeway.  Just as that image registered in my brain and I thought that perhaps I ought to stop, I passed another fawn.  I now consciously scanned ahead but no signs of deer.  I decided against pulling over and walking back to where the fawn where.

The sighting of deer when I drive continues to be exciting even after all these ten years of living in Oregon.  It was quite a change from the semi-desert conditions that I was used to in Southern California, and the nearly-equatorial environment in which I grew up in India. The deer and the hawks and the trees and the grass and the flowers and the mountains and the rivers ... all constitute the psychic income that former governor Tom McCall said we earn by simply living in this paradise.

But then there are the times when I don't see deer dancing away by the roadside and is heart-wrenching to see them discombobulated having been stilled by fast moving vehicles. It is simply awful to see a deer dead that way, all because we invaded their territories, built roads, and end up hitting them as we speed along for whatever. 

As I type this, I feel I shortchanged myself by not stopping as soon as I spotted the first fawn.  I hope it is not because my love for them is any less deep than it was ten years ago.

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