"I am a Mountain Deer"

After a stinging rejection letter, I'm still me.

Hi all. I’m writing this after receiving a particularly brutal rejection note today. It stung in the way that you forget about when everything is going relatively okay in your life. A sting that aches. That comes and goes, each wave of remembrance layering a new emotion onto all the others before it. Confusion. Anger. Shame. But after some time to think (with the understanding that I’ll need much more of that time) I wanted to share a note that I received a few months ago. Something I’ve been doing is keeping what they call a “feel good folder.” A folder with images I like, words of encouragement I’ve saved, things I’ve laughed at, beauty and tenderness, things that make me sit and sigh and involuntarily give out a low whistle at the splendor of life I get to partake in for the briefest of moments on earth. There is also a lot of pictures of CRT TV’s, Roosters, and pixelated games from my youth. Here’s a tiny sample scroll through the feed:

Now I could pretend like this is some sort of highfalutin thing. But really it’s just a private pinterest board eh? Or something like a digital mood board. But after a day like today and a genuine kick in the belly rejection it helps to remember these tiny joys. It also reminded me of an exchange I had with an old neighbor of mine. Their words resonate with me in this ebb of self-worth.

I had posted on Blue Sky. This account started following me and I wasn’t quite sure who they were. But they commented on my post. With the following:

You told me once - while climbing the wrought iron pillar of my back porch - that you were going to climb mountains when you grew up.

I believed you.

I still do.

I've watched from afar as you've become a mountaineer in many forms.

The comment took me aback. For the quality of its writing, yes, but also in the specificity of that writing. At first I thought it was speaking in generalities…but that line “climbing the wrought iron pillar of my back porch.” Was stirring something. A wisp of a memory locked away, buried by the passage of time and accumulated wear of a life lived. My curiosity piqued, I had to message them. I said:

Hello! Sorry if this is a silly question...but your comment on my post was one of the nicest things I've read in quite some time. Was that a real interaction or a metaphor? I ask because I did actually used to climb up onto porch roofs/grates/anything I could as a kid lol.

And they delivered a reply that made everything seem a bit smaller around me. The way that things get smaller when your kid holds your hand or when you rest your head on your partners chest to feel them breathe in as you breathe in.

I used to be your neighbor across the alley.

One afternoon while I was on the back porch - you, Nancy, Javi, Cynthia, & Ezzie came over. (You were maybe 5-6?) I blew bubbles in the yard, you guys ran around popping them until you got hot. I fed you all lemonade & cookies and you climbed my porch & sat on the roof.

I asked if you were going to be a mountaineer. You asked what that meant & after I told you, you said "Mexicans don't do that."

I said, "Sure they do. All the time. Mexico City is surrounded by mountains. Besides - you can do whatever you want."

You laughed & said, "Then I'm a mountain-deer."

And I helped you off the roof. (I was terrified that you'd fall and I'd have to tell Irene that her son got hurt at my house.)

Oh how there are tears in my eyes as I read their note again. Mind you I don’t recall this exchange. At all. But it tracks. Everything from the acerbic bluntness you can only get from a kid raised in West Liberty, (“Mexicans don’t do that.”) To the calm bravado of a kid relaying a truth he needs to hear as a man getting dangerously close to middle-aged. Thank you to my old neighbor who gave me the absolute gift of this memory I cannot recall. Thank you. To the readers, old and new, who support me through the ebbs and flows. Thank you. The waves of emotion will still wash over me for some time. But after a while I know the immediate sting of rejection will dull and what will remain is a belief. In a boy who said he was a mountain-deer. And I’ll climb.

-C