I was totally not going to geek out about the season changing today. I don't have any photos and plus it seems everyone has to comment on the weather. And if there is one thing I'd like to avoid doing in this blog is give you exactly what everyone else is writing about -- especially without photos. But then I went running yesterday.
I may have neglected to mention this lately, but I live in a city. Not only do I live in a city, I live in a rather sprawling one that is forever expanding to create our own urban jungle. At times this is really hard because I am a country mouse at heart. I grew up in rural North Carolina, just shy of the Blue Ridge Parkway. I used to mock the "leaf people" who would arrive every year like migrant birds and perch dangerously on our narrow roads to look at the changing colors. But at the same time I loved our seasons and the peace that comes from living in a town where a young teenage girl can ride her bike for half an hour to the library and stay until it closes. This is something I have missed dearly since moving to the various cities in which I have completed graduate work and made my home.
Yesterday I came home from a frustrating work day and determined to go for a nice run on a paved trail about half a mile from our apartment (As an aside: I just tried to type "flat". One of my coworkers is a British citizen and I often find myself adapting to her vocabulary. Plus I just love the idea of having a flat). This route goes through the back of a fairly wealthy neighborhood and follows the course of a stream through a small patch of woods. I often find myself taking to this trail for its familiarity. It is lovely to be surrounded by trees and small critters who make their way across the paving. I often pass families out for an evening stroll or artists set up to work on their landscapes. This time I passed two enterprising young boys who had taken a sturdy rope and secured it so that they could zipline across a deeper part of the streambed.
As I was running I looked up and to my astonishment watched a young deer cross the path about twenty yards in front of me. I almost came to a stop out of shock. This was the middle of an urbanized environment and here was this beautiful creature all alone, trusting me enough to walk right out in the open. Even though the deer back home are way too skittish for this sort of behavior, it was still beautiful and for a little while quelled that homesickness I always have in the back of my mind. I love living in the city, but I long for more than a few colored leaves to mark our transition into Autumn and eventually winter. It was a wonderful moment that made me appreciate the beauty of this season all the more.
Now if you will excuse me, I have some pumpkin colored yarn just dying to be swatched for something cabley.
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FYI...deer are able to live in small wooded areas within urban environments. So even in downtown Detroit they still have deer running through yards from parks (you just have to be in the right place at the right time). They also tend to follow paths they know. There is a section on my road that I have to be very careful when driving at gloaming. So it looks like you might've found a spot!
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