Doe a Deer...

The cousins named a deer after me--Little Belle. She's probably the fawn that runs ahead of the doe, gets lost in the woods, subsequently finds her way and then dreams about the hours, minutes, seconds, days that she spent alone. The little brain and big, wide eyes can't really recollect or see the days for what they were. I am the deer and the deer is me and the cold twilight and loneliness have a habit of being romanticized and turned into times of exploration and self-actualization.

I want to change.

I want to see things for what they really are. I don't want to deify, glorify or over conceptualize things from my past. Zora Neale Hurston said, "There are years that ask questions and years that answer." This year--right this very moment!--I want to realize the beauties before me, the blessings that have been handed down (from somewhere--from above?). I don't want to look back with the requisite misty eyes and wish that I were still single instead of with Southern Boy, that I were living in Trastevere, Rome instead of SoHo, New York, that I were writing news scripts for broadcasts instead of chapters for a novel. I want to live in the here and now.

Ms. Hurston would have claimed these past twelve months to be my Year of Answers. In the same manner, Truman Capote would have said that this was my year of Answered Prayers. I fell in love with a beautiful loving soul (a man that I had heretofore only known in my most ambitious daytime reveries), I pursued my passion for writing and actually achieved my dream, I grew closer to my family.

I'm out of the woods. I'm on the right path. I'm experiencing a wonderful time in my life... which probably means that the cousins are up in the tree stand, aiming to shoot me, stuff me, mount me on the bedroom wall.

Damn, there I go again.