I am a nester. An emotional nester as opposed to a physical one. I used to sleep on a tapestry that I substituted for bed sheets proper and made maximum use of a dutch oven pot as bowl and deep frying pan. By nester, I mean that I tend to settle into a situation quickly. In all of my jobs I imagine the rest of my life as if it were my last job. What can I do with a career as a janitor? After twenty years of making copies as a law office assistant. I would hope for a raise or promotion, but I tried to make my peace as early as possible. This helps when dealing with horrible jobs and it does not stifle any desire for upward mobility. That is the whole reason why we moved.
I got used to the move quickly. Ithaca and New York state were the only places I ever lived in after my move from Puerto Rico. So, I accept that everyone says "pop" here even though you will never catch me saying that. Did we go through a time warp here and start saying pop, shopping at Woolworth's, and getting our food from car hops? I have already spoken about the cadence of the Cleveland, OH metro area and how it is refreshing after the Ithaca scene.
However, there is one aspect of Cleveland living that I have yet to acclimatize myself to.
People tend to freak out here when they see a deer. We were driving though the Metroparks (A lovely set of urban parks in Cuyahoga County) and suddenly hit a four car long crawl. People take the Metroparks' roads for both the scenery and lack of traffic lights. Why were people going so slow?
There was a deer. A pretty ho-hum doe. However, there was also a fawn and this must have flipped people's lids. It was a late summer fawn and the speckled white pattern faded underneath he adolescent chestnut coat. Cute, but considering that our old house in Ithaca had three to four fawns living on the lawn we reacted with "Get the hell going!" as opposed to "Oh, honey go get your camera!"
Anyone living on Ithaca's hills shares an intimate relationship with deer. Deer are so common place that they end up becoming defacto neighbors with their own patterns and preferences. I used to whiz surplus apples into the hedges and one resident put our entire heads of Romaine lettuce for the deer. This might seem excessive, but these are sacrificial gestures designed to protect mums and lily bulbs. We just had too many apples and I swear those deer knew me as the "Crazy Apple Guy." When you stare at their black mirror eyes you begin to imagine and legitimize anything in that void. All the deer need to do is ask to borrow a cup of sugar and they can become full fledged neighborhood citizens!* If deer were ever to evolve into a new species, it would happen in Ithaca.
Everything is relative. While people here might scream out, "Holy shit! Look at that deer!" an average Ithaca resident visiting the Cleveland area might remark, "Damn! Synchronized stop lights!"
Peace!
They do exist!
*If there isn't already someone advocating for deer rights in Ithaca then they are to come. Whatever happened to the dog park people? TCDEER, much?
No comments:
Post a Comment