La Voz de Galicia – November 22, 2024 →
They were two beautiful deer, large and majestic. They were walking through the parking lot like two strange creatures out of context. Xan said, “Look!” and I looked, and we both stood there, amazed, watching them move among the cars and disappear the moment one of those cars started its engine. At the time, I didn’t think much of the “event”, accepting it as one of those many things that can happen on any given day (as if I’d seen so many deer in my life!). But for some reason, the image stayed in my head, like a dream, like a piece of art, and now, two weeks later, it comes back to me every day.
On these days when winter seems to have already arrived, when gray overtakes green, I’ve found myself thinking about how life has small moments of magic that we’re not always able to see—or, if we do see them, we don’t consider them magical. Or we’re in such a hurry that we no longer appreciate them. I’ve been thinking about how our lives today feel like that infinite scroll of social media, like the back-to-back series on streaming platforms and TV. We move from one thing to the next without noticing, without pausing to reflect or simply acknowledge what’s happening in the reality of our lives.
On the day of the deer, many things happened. I marveled at the moment (what was it, three seconds?), but then I went on with my day. And yet, the image of the deer came back to me to remind me that, sometimes, if we don’t stop to appreciate things, they might pass us by without leaving a trace, and we might forget them. It might be that we live as we do on social media, in a life full of images passing by without substance… It might be that we lose sight of what it means to be alive.
