Seeing Things

One runner finds that returning to his old routine gives him a new perspective.

Gianni De Conno

It was a cool fall evening around 10 o'clock, and I was slogging through a three-mile loop, not yet back to form after a long hiatus from running. I had blamed the break on my busy job and the demands of raising a young daughter, but in reality I'd stopped because my jogs became too sporadic to do me any good. Lacing up my New Balances began to feel like a chore, so I put them away. But as any lifelong runner knows, you can only avoid the road or trail for so long. Running gets under your skin and becomes a basic need. On that night in October, I needed it more than I knew. About a mile in, I turned onto a partially wooded residential street overlooking downtown St. Paul and stopped in my tracks. On the sidewalk, 10 feet from where I stood, was the largest deer I'd ever seen. He turned and faced me straight on, head upright, eyes unblinking. His coat was rust-colored, save for swatches of white around his nose and chin. Steam curled off his massive frame, then around his antlers and into the night. Neither of us moved. It was your typical man-versus-deer staring contest in the middle of the city. After half a minute, maybe more, I blinked out of fear, and the whitetail crossed the street and walked into the woods. Though the sight of a stag gone urban was startling, I didn't think much of it until two nights later: same loop, same spot, like he was expecting me.

This time I wasn't scared. To his left, a white bungalow with a neatly trimmed lawn made the scene more absurd than threatening. I noticed things I hadn't the other night: a large scar on his chest, something almost human in his eyes. Overwhelmed by the sudden kinship I felt toward this wild creature, I choked up. When I pulled it together, he bowed his antlers—were there 10 points? 12?—and walked into the trees once more.

All was quiet. My sweat turned cold and I began to shiver, but I didn't move. A peaceful buzz had settled over me, something I hadn't felt in months.

Most miscarriages occur within the first eight weeks of pregnancy. But when ours happened on that awful morning just three months earlier, it was midterm, which meant my wife had to deliver a small but perfectly formed boy. When the initial shock wore off, we fell into a zombie state of sadness that not even our then-3-year-old daughter could shake us from.

Eventually, the fog lifted a little and I turned again to running. My rationale: After seeing the fragility of life firsthand, I wanted to get healthy for myself and for my family. It worked, but in the way painkillers do. I'd feel good afterward, yet the ache always returned.

Cue Bambi's dad. Now, I'm not saying he healed me like some four-legged televangelist. Rather, I saw his gaze as a blessing: Step away from the pain for a moment, then another, until it's only a whisper.

I sought distraction during the weeks that followed. My wife and I watched bad reality TV. I cooked elaborate meals for the three of us just to get lost in the chopping, slicing, and sautéing. I spent entire afternoons as a frog, my daughter as the owner of a make-believe hotel for amphibians. And I ran. The more miles I logged, the more essential running came to feel. Each jog returned my brain to its factory settings, replacing stress and grief with a near-meditative state. It wasn't "runner's high," a term I've always thought was reductive, but something deeper, more life-affirming. Perhaps you could argue that I was avoiding grief, but I believe I was moving toward some form of acceptance and that the whitetail, in an unknowable way, had something to do with it.

Writing these words feels a bit strange because I'm not generally one to anthropomorphize or graft meaning onto seemingly random events. Yet I am certain what occurred on that quiet corner was no chance encounter—as certain as I am about running's capacity for brokering such moments.

I jogged my old loop the other day, and when I reached that handsome wooded street high above the Mississippi River Valley, I stopped and looked around. I saw buds on the birch trees. I noted the scent of lilacs in the breeze. And then I kept running.

* * *

Ten months after his encounter with the deer, writer Chris Clayton and his wife had a healthy baby boy.

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