I was looking through a box of cards that I made years and years ago and stopped at this one: "Reindeer in the Pines." And just sat, pondering it. Maybe it's the heat. Maybe I want to linger on reindeer and arctic wolves and all things polar because it's so very hot this summer here in Texas. But, if truth be told, I have another and very secret reason for lingering upon reindeer.
When I was in 7th or 8th grade, I came home from school one afternoon and discovered the most amazing thing. I didn't tell anyone for the longest time. For years, actually.
The latest National Geographic had arrived, and it contained the most shocking article on reindeer. I remember that I sat stock-still, stunned beyond belief. I turned the pages, peering into the photographs, squinting into the photographs, looking away, looking back again. For there, right before my eyes, was something so unbelievable it took my breath away.
This is a re-creation of the scene after school: a healthy snack and the latest copy of National Geographic. Not this particular one, but it would have been similar. This one has an article about "Following the Reindeer in Norway." (Okay, the apple is a total fantasy. I never once in my life came home from school and ate an apple. As I recall, I always ate a candy bar and drank a Pepsi, which was the only soft drink allowed in our house as it was my father's one and only favorite.)
But back to reindeer.
Here is what I found out that day: National Geographic was actually showcasing photographs of reindeer. And this, mind you, was long before photographs were routinely doctored up in PhotoShop. So these photos had to be true.
But how could this be? Photographs? Of reindeer??
You see, I had not realized up to then that reindeer were real animals. I thought they were fictional, along with Santa Claus, elves, and the Tooth Fairy. And here they were featured in National Geographic as big as life. Here were photographs of real-life reindeer.
Some real-life reindeer in a photo I found in WikiCommons: "Traveling with Reindeer," about 1890-1900, Arkhangelsk, Russia.
I didn't tell anyone about my revelation because I was embarrassed that I had not known that reindeer were real animals. But inside I was thrilled beyond words.
For how often in life do you get to find out that something magical is really real? Usually, it's the other way around. You spend any number of years finding out, one by one, that things you believed in aren't real after all. This was one truly incredible moment when fiction turned into fact right before my eyes.
I still feel the power of that moment to this very day every time I think about or read about or see images of reindeer. For, to me, these wonderful animals will always be fairytale creatures that have come to life.
Here is a reindeer on a holiday card from P.S. Greetings in Chicago. At least I think it is a reindeer. Maybe a reindeer fawn. You might think this isn't a reindeer, but I do believe the red nose gives it away. (And that, of course, is a whole other story.)
The dearest woman in the world who worked in our house while we were growing up and who helped raise me and my siblings sent this card to me some years ago now, so I especially treasure it.
The artist's name is not mentioned, but I love how he or she has made the plant grow right out of the inner frame into the red frame, and then let the large star rise up out of the red frame into the gold frame. It's the smallest things, like these, that give an extra dimension to a piece of art.
And, in my case, this slight altering of reality, this artful plant growing right out of its own little canvas and climbing up the frame, fits in with my experience of reindeer leaping right out of a poem into the real world.
