To My Husband Misunderstanding the Park Ranger

At a nearby nature park, my husband and son have gone to feed the birds. Chickadees fly off nearby pine trees and take a seed from Whit’s hand. Keith watches both Whit and the birds. Whit. The birds. His hand. The bird on his hand. He hopes Whit remembers this.

Keith grew up by the ocean in Half Moon Bay and then on the country roads of southern Michigan. Deer hunting as a kid, the best part was sitting still in the woods, waiting and watching. The rustle of something far off and the sound of it moving closer: deer? racoon? wild turkey?

He never killed one, always missed. The few times he had a shot, he got so scared his arms shook, throwing his aim off. 

When we drive, wherever we drive, he sees them, far off in a small grove. He can count them before I find them. He comes back from a run on the trail, all excited, “I saw three deer!” As a child he played "deer," running through the cornfields behind his house. I think if I tell him I want to paint our house deer brown, he would marry me all over again.

At the park, after the bird feeding, he hears a ranger talking about needing volunteers for deer maintenance and thinks, “Finally!” He imagines walking out with buckets of water for them on dry summer days, maybe leaving corn cobs out in the winter. Maybe one will recognize him over time, approach him. He can’t touch it, but it doesn’t run. The deer will be as much a pet as a wild animal should be. He wants in.

So he asks the ranger and the ranger explains that twice a year they find volunteers who help with--he pauses as he sees Whit there--”herd control.” Slowly, slowly Keith realizes what “maintenance” means, what “control” means. It is the complete and exact opposite of what they should mean. He feels sick and that he misunderstood and that somewhere, volunteers are applying to come into the park, shotguns at the ready. 

I want to live in his world. Where we feed animals from the palm our hands. Where we feel responsible. Where we hold ourselves still in hopes the beautiful appears. The world where that never grows old.