I had just created the title and the featured image for this post when I received the New York Times news alert that Iran had fired “retaliatory missiles” at Al Udeid Air Base, the largest American military installation in the Middle East. Early reports appear to indicate that Iran’s attack was “performative” and not “escalatory” — a “symbolic” attack because, well, “We just can’t sit around and let the United States bomb the hell out of our nuclear sites, can we? We gotta do SOMEthing.” Apparently, the current occupant of the White House, donned in his red MAGA hat, is in the situation room trying to figure out how to stay true to the Truth Social warning he posted Sunday: “ANY RETALIATION BY IRAN AGAINST THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL BE MET WITH FORCE FAR GREATER THAN WHAT WAS WITNESSED TONIGHT.”

ALL CAPS! LOOOOOOOK OUT!

Good Lord, eighth graders are running the world.

So, what should I do? Sit in front of my TV in horror or go back to writing about what I did early yesterday morning to help me survive this fucking administration. I’m going back. I’m not waiting to share how I became enchanted.

Yesterday morning, I walked down Research Road — one of the entrances to my beloved farmland — for the first time since my knee surgery. It’s a very steep 3/4-mile hill that I could at one time bike up with no problem. Now, would I be able to walk up once I walked down? It was very humid. As I approached the bottom of the hill, a cheerful passing runner yelled, “Good morning! How are you?” I grumbled, “Hot and bothered!” He kept running. I didn’t blame him.

As I was about to turn around to begin the long exacting trek up the hill, I saw two deer in the distant mist of a field. I stood still and silent and took several photos. When I got home, I was struck by the coloring in the photos, but didn’t know why. I sent one of the photos to Adrienne who said, “That looks like a pointillist painting. And you’re right, the colors are lovely.”

I looked up “pointillism” to remind myself what it is: “A painting technique where small, distinct dots of color are applied in patterns to form an image. It is a form of Neo-Impressionism developed by Georges Seurat.” The spots on the deer to the right (on the above photo) did seem to blend in with whatever was growing in the field. Shortly after I took that photo, a third deer appeared and all three gracefully leaped and disappeared into the woods.

I trekked as quickly as I could up Research Road. I was still hot, but not really bothered. I was mostly curious to see if the photos I had captured of the deer in the morning mist were as mystical as they appeared. When I looked at the photos on my desktop at home, I saw that they were. Plus, thanks to Adrienne’s perspective, they looked like art. Art. I was enchanted.

In her book, Enchantment, Katherine May writes:

Our sense of enchantment is not triggered only by grand things, the sublime is not hiding in distant landscapes. The awe-inspiring, the numinous, is all around us, all the time. It is transformed by our deliberate attention. It becomes valuable when we value it. It becomes meaningful when we invest it with meaning. The magic is of our own conjuring. . . . If we wait passively to become enchanted, we could wait a long time.

Don’t wait.