Mama Cow

In my seventh year of life, on a rather hot spring day, I ran my hands over the rising switchgrass as I rustled out into the pasture after Mama Gurley said that a new calf had been born. “You can probably find him out there near the big tree by the fence,” she said, turning in the bright kitchen, passing Mom a spoon, who was cradling my baby sister. “You know the one, the big, tall, fat tree that’s hunched over. That baby’s probably there in the shade.” The flatland of fields in the Arkansas delta made trees in the distance distinct in their characters, like sculptures easily recognized. Since Mom was having “adult conversation” with my grandmother, I thought going out to explore and see this new addition to her herd was the perfect idea. As the screen door slapped shut behind me, I heard, “We’ll see if we can find you a treat when you get back!” I hoped it was her chocolate pie.

The walk was a long one from the faded gray barn behind the white farmhouse all the way out to the tree, but my excitement propelled me forth along the pasture in anticipation of meeting this new little fella. I looked down at my feet tossing dirt on the ground as I made my way along the fence, tapping the barbed wire with a stick I had acquired along the way. Before I arrived at the edge of the shade of the wide green canopy of the big tree, I looked around to see where the other cows were. There were plenty around, but not very close, minding their own business, some lounging in the sunshine by their watering hole, others grazing absentmindedly.

As I walked into the subdued shade, I was surprised to see the calf standing strong all alone by the fence. We eyed each other cautiously as I remained incredibly still, stopped in my tracks. I held my breath as I took him in: brown and white hide, pink nose, wide eyes, his ears rotating toward sounds. The calf didn’t seem frightened by me, and he was about the same height as me. Timidly, I believed if I just reached out my hand and walked forward very slowly, I could pet his head. What a story it would be to tell Mama Gurley! Nervously and hesitantly, I raised my arm and took a step.

Stars.

The next thing I remember is opening my eyes to see part of the tree and part of the big blue sky, with a bright white cloud or two floating by into view from flat on my back on the hard ground. Stunned, I saw my right leg was caught on the fence, my blue jeans snared on barbed wire. I had been involuntarily moved some distance from where I had been standing just before. And to my amazement, shock, and awe, a huge brown and white cow stood over me, licking my exposed right calf.

Shoo, cow.

Mom and Mama Gurley thought the whole thing was absolutely hilarious. It tickled them into a very hearty laugh that I had tried to pet the new calf only to have its protective mother toss me like a doll into a barbed wire fence. Oblivious to the story’s humor, I thought they were being very insensitive, and was pouting needingly. Taking me to the bathroom, Mama Gurley fished out a Band-aid from the blue and red branded, white tin can to put on the freshly washed cut on my leg. I sat on the toilet, and as she turned from the medicine cabinet, she smiled. “Well, you are still alive, aren’t you?” she asked, looking over her glasses and lining up the band-aid on my left calf propped on the bathtub. “Yes.” She pressed; I winced.

“There you go,” Mama Gurley said, unbothered, “You’re going to need a shot.” I shot a scowl through my clenched teeth and pulled my jeans down over my calf. I wanted her to feel my hurt with me. I wanted her to scoop me up, hug me, and feel sorry for me. My bruised ego made me feel utterly defeated, smaller than the baby calf and half as smart. “Cracker Jack, I’ll tell you something,” she said, putting the tin back into the cabinet behind the mirror before facing me. Embracing my chin in her hands, she looked into my eyes and said, “We all get knocked off our feet sometimes.”

Mama Gurley stood and reached into her apron pocket for a tissue, “Besides, that cow was probably really sorry she had hurt someone else’s baby.” She dabbed the tissue to the tip of her nose. “After she knew you weren’t going to hurt her baby, she was licking you to make sure you were alright.” Mama Gurley knew her cows better than I did, and that thought did make me feel a little better, so I took her word for it. I still wasn’t planning any trips back out to the pasture for a while. I’d need a second wind.

Mama Gurley stood me up, “Now, guess what’s on the kitchen table, covered in meringue?”

'Home, Home on the' web

In the year 2000, when internet dating was getting warmed up, I met a first date, a blind except-for-pictures date, at a bar on the Upper East Side. At that time, that elite area in New York City was unfamiliar to me. I had only been there one other time to see a therapist after moving to the city from Arkansas after college. I don’t remember her therapy being especially helpful, but I do remember being in awe of her apartment of multiple rooms in an immaculate building guarded by a doorman in uniform. I usually had $1 in my pocket to buy a slice of pizza for dinner, so meeting this date in that area already had me gassy with anxiety.

Turns out we were not a match, gas aside, but the date was cordial and friendly, with an easy conversation which led to our discussing our writing passions. I told him about the short story I wrote in a creative writing class at the New School, and he, more accomplished, shared that he had recently started writing something called a “blog” that he was really enjoying. As those were the days of cell phones primarily making calls, he wrote down the http:// web address on a bar napkin for me to check out later once I was at a computer. “I just write about life,” he said, smiling, sliding the napkin across the dark wood to me. Of course, my immediate thought was, I hope he isn’t going to write about me or this date! We cannot help but be the stars of our own movies.

Gratefully, I did not show up in his personal blog, but I was fascinated reading it. He was an excellent and funny writer, and I really enjoyed his antics. Whenever I was on the computer, usually checking e-mail or reading Suck.com, I made it a point to read his entries, and not just to see if I would happen to make a random appearance, “The date that was not.” No, I continued to read his work because he was sharing more than just his life, where he went to have dinner. He also wrote his reflections about living life. Very personally and introspectively, he wrote about living his life’s questions daily, echoing the book “Letters to a Young Poet” by Rainer Maria Rilke that my best friend, Leonardo, had given me. Incredibly inspired, I decided that if a random guy I met on an internet date could “blog,” I could blog, too, calling it, “Where the Deer and the Antelope Play,” my Arkansan way of saying this blog would be my own little ‘home, home on the’ web.

And so for most of my adult life, I’ve been writing and writing into the digital black hole of the internet. Though my blog has gotten me into trouble once or twice, caused some challenging conversations, and has been mostly forgotten (I like to think, swept up in a tide of an over-saturation of information lapping at every toe), this little blog of mine has been a lifeline for me, personally, these past 25 years. It’s allowed me to yell into the void, “Don’t go to war!” on multiple occasions, and talk out my questions, faith, and perspective. And maybe that’s all my blog is meant to be, an invaluable “release valve” for me (I highly recommend it.)

“Were the Deer and the Antelope to Play” by me is by no means perfect. There’s no specific purpose to it, nor does it attempt to do anything. (Other than say, NO WAR.) There are spelling errors and grammar issues, especially in the earliest posts. And even I get annoyed by some of my naiveté and self-righteousness. Nevertheless, my blog is grace-filled and well-intentioned, and it serves as a witness of my life living life’s questions. If you read it, thank you. I’d love to hear why!

While a lot has happened since my first post in 2000, at my core, I remain a Gen-X poet for peace writing protest poetry. And I’m also still that idealistic, therefore depressive, seeker needing to share my thoughts about human life in modernity. However, one thing age has taught me, and you will see more of in my writing (hopefully), is my fresh belief that witnessing is much more powerful than preaching. I can’t tell you what to do, what to believe, or give you advice. I’m barely getting through it myself. But I can tell you what I see. And if it nudges your perspective, that’s really cool.

Severe Turbulence

What a way to start 2025! And I’m not just talking about the New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans or the ongoing days of blazing fires decimating Southern California. These alone, not to mention the impending change in our realities, are making for a very turbulent beginning to this new year. The oxygen masks have fallen. My family has grabbed them. We pray.

Thursday morning, two weeks ago, after another “panic attack,” my brother-in-law checked himself into the hospital to test his heart. Just a week prior, he, my sister, and two nephews were in gorgeous and sunny, albeit giant grasshopper-filled, Costa Rica for Christmas. My brother-in-law is the ultimate trip planner: They zip-lined down a waterfall, hiked through rainforests, went white water rafting, even did a little surfing. One night there, he had woken to a “panic attack” frightening them all, more than the insects as long as an adult’s hand who were uninvited guests to their earlier supper near the beach under a star-streaked sky. Back home, he was not going to ignore another when the same “panic attack” feeling overcame him, and he checked himself into the hospital for heart tests the day after New Year’s.

The heart tests quickly led to a mandatory wheelchair to the Emergency Room where, after hours of nervous but patient waiting, more tests determined that his heart was in serious trouble. With my sister by his side, he was admitted right away. A man who eats so incredibly healthy and who daily exercises religiously discovered that two of his arteries were blocked 100%. As for the other two, 90% blockage and 80% blockage. It was shocking, to say the least.

Remarkably, his body had started creating new vessels as organic bypasses to continue the heart’s function because the blockage had built so slowly. Bodies are miraculous in their ability to evolve to survive. Unfortunately, they were not growing fast enough, and his heart was not getting the blood it needed to continue its perfect rhythm to deliver life’s blood. A wonderful cardiologist conferred with a seasoned surgeon who performed a successful quadruple bypass surgery on my brother-in-law last week. He is home now, and everyone is incredibly grateful. A new journey begins, one not without many challenges ahead. We are in ceaseless prayer.

You know, now is a good time for prayer. It’s kind of the soul’s oxygen. Grab a mask. Unfortunately, prayer has lost its value in society. Hypocritical politicians and dictators of religion have denigrated the idea of personally praying to something or someone outside of oneself who is believed to be the Creator. When I hear powerful people offer “thoughts and prayers,” it can make prayer feel meaningless primarily because their prayers never seem to broaden their perspective enough to effect fortuitous change. Which, I believe, is what prayer can do. And let’s face it, Jesus didn’t offer thoughts and prayers; he did something.

Some will say prayer is an abstract enjoining of the energies of life. A socket to a plug. I like that. Fill’er up. Some will say that it is the soul’s way of connecting with the wider spirit of one, all, our ancestors, our prophets, our saviors, the Earth, the Universe. It definitely feels beyond and within. Some will say that prayer is a human psychological delusion to force the hope humans need to survive. It must be an innate delusion, for we’ve been doing it in some form or fashion since the ancients invented time. And all of that’s fine. Personally, I choose to believe in prayer because the very act has gotten me through life. At times of my most despairing, prayer has connected me with an existential love outside of myself and encouraged me to persevere.

Quite honestly, I’ve been talking to God and sharing this life with Him (according to my own personalization of the unfathomable - cue Depeche Mode) since I can remember talking and processing thoughts. And from three through a mid-century, I have always been buoyed, my life’s narrative has been made meaningful, by choosing to believe in God and in a Creator with unconditional love for me. Prayer connects me to a heartbeat that is not my own—providing hope when I can only hope for hope. For me, prayer has been a lifeline. It is a big breath. Oxygen for my soul.

But no matter what you think of it or how you interpret it, no matter if you believe in it, at its most basic, prayer is a good way of letting go of the pressure we put on ourselves for everything to go perfectly, surrendering to something entirely out of our control to find release and relief. Like loud steam from a tea kettle calling out to Grandma, who is also warming leftover chicken and macaroni and cheese, prayer is a nurturing comfort.