Small Miracles

We walked about six miles today in Yosemite Valley, never far from the river and loving the golden leaves. I wouldn’t call it a hike, although we wear our boots, more like a stroll, a meander for the soul. Lunch is on a rock on the sand at Superintendent’s Bridge, luxuriating in the feel of the sun on our backs and the sound of the water gentling over the stones. As we dip our carrot sticks in hummus, a big buck deer picks a delicate path down the opposite bank, each foot carefully placed.  There’s not much water this time of year, and right here it is wide and still. The deer doesn’t make a sound. There are tourists on the bridge, a circle of students under a big tree writing in their nature journals—no one sees the deer. It feels like our own private nature bubble, except for the lone young woman sitting in the gravel over to the left, putting on her shoes after wading across the stream. The deer is headed straight for her. They must be staring right into each other’s eyes. Can she smell it? I wonder—would I have been able to sit there so quietly or would I have tried to scramble up and away, would I have said shoo and waved my arms? Would I have been able to breathe?The deer passes her within a couple feet, not caring. And then he’s gone. It’s as if this never happened.  The girl moves on too, not even making eye contact with us, the only other witnesses.

Milkweed is everywhere, at the perfect ripe bursting point, sending its explosions of silk over all the meadows.