Memoirous

 Going to Work This one morning autumn crisp, the light barely breaking, and leaves the color of a riot circus, ostentatious, blaring, announcing themselves. Then   a car in front of me slows, swerves and another . . . I see the deer in the roadway doing a GI crawl across traffic, its hind legs dragging, its eyes focused on the other side, mouth grim and set. And, who am I on the spectrum: a little less or more than an animal to the passing motorist, a cyclist pausing in the lane, straddling her bike holding out both arms to slow or stop oncoming vehicles, waiting for the injured deer to make it to the grassy berm. To paradise.   After a matter of minutes, I continue, my morning clouded with this image of struggle, life and death, desire to survive.

  This time of year brings its own particular memories—usually brought on by the five senses. The smell of fresh-fallen snow reminds us of sled runs when we were younger, the velvety taste of hot chocolate reminds me of sipping cocoa from my Santa mug when I was five or six years old, the ugly ornament half broken and losing its shiny luster is the one I am most fond of, the one my mother gave me that used to be hers. The lights, the carols, the yummy smells all work together to bring forth memories—some good, some not so good. I remember one particular weekend before Christmas when I was a Girl Scout leader for my daughter’s troop. At best it was like herding cats. Trying to get a dozen or so girls to cooperate, for one minute to shut up and listen. We had plans to go downtown to the Museum of Science and Industry for Christmas Around the World . Does the museum still do this? It is where in the Great Hall trees representing Christmas in other lands are decorated. These...

*the title of this piece is taken from a really syrupy Disney film--about as far from this post as you can get So yesterday as I was trying to recover from my arduous day of hiking and biking during a windstorm, I was telling Monica and Edna the workers here at Starry Night all about it. When I got to the part about the dead deer they were like oh my gosh. I've never seen women jump so fast. Within minutes we'd all changed out of pajamas and Edna had grabbed work gloves and a hand saw (?) and we were out the door to go back for the parts. I directed them down the dirt road that borders the Rio Grande. As soon as we got back to the sandy washout where we picked up the dead deer trail Edna had her gloves on. She picked up a leg and gave it a quick twist to disconnect the sinews holding it to the hip bone. When the girls saw the skull they were like down in it taking pictures with their cell phones. Where am I? I was starting to wonder. Who are these people? Look at them ...

This is an unforgiving land. Yesterday I got up early, before sunrise, to pack and get to a trailhead to start my hike. First mistake: I went by myself. I had to ride a ricekty old bike with only 3 gears six miles and half of that was on dirt road, following the oral instructions of the girl who works at the hot springs spa. I found the parking lot she told me about, really just leveled off dirt and saw I had to go through a barbed wire fence, this type of fencing is everywhere out here. So still nothing new. I thought about using a stick to separate the wires and reached down for what I thought was a stick. It was a deer leg, perfectly intact, hoof and all. I screamed and backed over the deer head. Once on the other side of the fence I began seeing more and more macabre deer parts. Possibly torn apart by a predator or a serial killer. I was told by spa lady to go up an arroyo, a wash out that when during dry season become a path. I hiked that--there are ways to get lost and I di...