No matter where I've lived, meandering has been a constant of my daily routine. Up until this past spring I wandered the streets of downtown Minneapolis, drifting through the shadows cast by skyscrapers of glass and steel. Now that I live in the countryside just west of the Twin Cities, the concrete sidewalks are replaced by gravel roads. And apart from the occasional silo, the towers are made of cottonwood, oak and maple.
Before this year, I had been a mere passerby in these parts, visiting the cabin on weekends as one does. It's been nearly a century since a lack of air conditioning (combined with the advent of the automobile) drove my Norwegian ancestors from Minneapolis in search of a lakeside breeze. In all the years that followed, no one in my family stayed for more than a season. Until now. Is it still called a cabin if you live there?
Perhaps a better question is: Why would a single, 30-something hipster leave the millennial mecca of Minneapolis for rural Minnesota? The short answer is that I desired a change, both of scenery and career. And I desired a simpler way of life. So, with Walden in mind, I resolved to spend a year living at the cabin and hacking away on my typewriter.
Soon after the move, on a day when the skies were filled with vernal flights of migrating birds, I spotted a solitary doe foraging in the soybean field that lines the cabin's driveway. As I continued down the path, inching closer to where the deer stood in the field, she locked eyes with mine. I expected her to bolt, but she didn't so much as flinch as I passed nearby. I wondered if my skinny jeans betrayed the absence of camouflage in my closet.
In the city, I used to make the acquaintance of shopkeepers and waiters who staffed my favorite neighborhood spots. Our conversations were always perfunctory, though I always knew their names and they knew mine. When I began to see the doe on a regular basis, I realized I had made a new kind of acquaintance. It seemed only fitting to give her a name. So I started to call her Bella, saying "Hi, Bella, good girl, Bella" in a soothing manner whenever our paths crossed.
Barreling down the driveway in my car on a sultry summer day, I startled a doe and two fawns. They darted into the soybean field, but I could see that the fawns hopped between the planted rows with all the glee of children hopping between puddles in a parking lot after the rain.
The doe sprinted ahead of the fawns, her white tail erect. I wasn't sure it was Bella. So I rolled down my window and called to her as I always do, "Hey, Bella, good girl, Bella." Her gallop slowed to a trot and then a stop. Her tail softened and wagged sheepishly.
Down the road and around a bend sits a church celebrating its sesquicentennial. I drove past it a thousand times before I ever dared to stop. The gothic steeple and sunken gravestones resting at its side had always steered my imagination toward fantasies worthy of Hitchcock.
