Ready Aim Fire

My hands were shaking as I took the gun.

The .243 was heavy and awkward as I held it against my shoulder. I cocked my head to peer through the scope and wrapped my finger gingerly around the trigger.

I took a deep breath and tried to relax. The world stopped for a moment.

Then I fired.

The shot rang in my ears for a second, and there was a strange, slightly unpleasant burning smell.

"Good job," said our friend Kevin encouragingly, stepping toward me and carefully taking the rifle.

I gave it up more reluctantly than I would have predicted, as my husband prepared to take his turn.

For there is something strangely (and surprisingly) thrilling about shooting.

I suppose, chemically, it might just be the pleasing effects of adrenaline. It felt lovely to be out in the fresh afternoon air, mastering this powerful skill. But the excitement was tempered by solemn seriousness. And in large part, the adrenaline was the result of a heavy realization, the recognition of a scary potential for harm.

It is not often that I hold the power to take life so easily, possibly without even meaning to.

Yet at some point I decided that I wanted to learn how to safely handle a gun. I was thinking about what it would be like to need a gun in an emergency, to have one, but not to know how to shoot it.

And now, after handling one, I am happier than ever to live in Canada...where gun laws are tough.

I Want To Ride It Where I Like

"For instance, the bicycle is the most efficient machine ever created: Converting calories into gas, a bicycle gets the equivalent of three thousand miles per gallon." ~Bill Strickland, The Quotable Cyclist

I caught sight of it last Thursday. There it stood, leaning with a rakish tilt on its slender kick-stand. It's lines were smooth and graceful. Bright red frame, thick white-wall tires. It stood in line among snowblowers and lawnmowers, patio furniture and tarps.

But if I wanted it, I'd have to fight for it.

The bidding began. My fingers tightened around my paper number, and my heart pounded. I pushed through the crowd to stand sentinel at the front, keeping my red beauty in sight.

"$25?"

A nod from a lady with a red jacket.

"$30?"

Man wearing denim coveralls lifts his hand.

"$35?"

Red jacket nods

"$40?"

Coveralls stays with it.

"45?"

Red jacket pauses, then shakes her head no.

I haven't yet raised my hand, and a vision of some set of clumsy paws wheeling my bike away flashes before me. I set my jaw.

"$45?"

I raise my number with determination.

"$50?"

Coveralls balks. The fight is over. With very little fuss, I have emerged the victor. I wheel my new bike to the parking lot where I gleefully ride around the cars in circles.

My bike is nothing special to anyone other than me. But to me, it feels like pure joy as I set my face to the wind and head out. It's the same rush of freedom I felt when the training wheels finally came off and it was just me and the sandy road to the candy store.

"Melancholy is incompatible with bicycling." ~James E. Starrs

Sharing Is Caring

Collectively, we humans know a lot of stuff. Too much stuff, in fact, for any one person to possibly hope to grasp in the course of a lifetime.

But, lucky for us, we share. We rely on the knowledge of others to allow us to move forward in our lives, unhindered. Most people don't know how a combustion engine works, but we drive happily along, free to contemplate other things.

We are literally surrounded by objects invented, created, and maintained by the expertise of a vague "them", but in "putting our heads together", we give each other the freedom and time required to delve deeply into whatever it is that interests us.

I've noticed the same thing happening in relationships.

It is only economical for my husband and I to pool our collective resources. I allow him to step in where my knowledge fails, and he does the same. In this way we are an efficient unit, pulling together.

But here's the downside: We're not forced to confront our weaknesses, and maybe some small aspects of our independent selves are lost.

A few days ago I drove down to my parents' cottage for a swim. It had been sunny and hot, but as I approached, I noticed threatening black clouds curdling over the West shoreline. A sharp wind was hurling the surf at the rocks and blowing ominous mists across the water. And there was the sailboat, completely off it's cradle, groaning and scraping against the sharp rocks of the groin.

I looked at the situation and immediately thought, "I need help." I turned to look at the empty cottage for backup, before it struck me that I was on my own. My first thought had been for my big, strong man, but it was with a sense of exhilaration that I took up the weight of responsibility and jumped into the water.

After a few moments of intense struggle, the boat was safely back in its mooring. I straightened up and felt a glimmer of pride. I had done it, on my own.

"Any woman can do anything," said my Grandma. (She was encouraging me not to worry, after reading my last blog post. "I'd never kill you," she added.)

But the strange paradox is that we can all 'do anything' only because we don't have to do everything. Others do some of it for us.

Reclaiming a small piece of my own self-sufficiency was an empowering experience. I remembered that I am capable and strong.

And yet, don't get the wrong impression. I don't mean to imply that we should be striving for stark independence. Aren't we sharing, communal, relational beings? Haven't you heard about prisoners being put in isolation? It's punishment.

It seems an inescapable fact: We belong to a web of interconnected yet separate lives. I've never met the person who invented my microwave oven, or the one who built it, packaged it, sold it, transported it, or wrote the commercial that made me buy it, but all of these people had some small part to play (for good or ill) in the thing that sits on top of my refrigerator, smelling slightly of cooked weiners.

Have you thought about your contribution lately?

What would you like to share?

The Frustrating Thing About Animals

Horse Eyelashes by Photos8.com
Originally uploaded by Photos8.com

I'm looking after my parents' place while they are away.

This means watering the gardens, feeding the cats, tending the chickens, and letting the horses in and out of the barn. And, for an apartment-dweller like me, this also means a certain degree of stress and frustration as I try to maintain control.

You see, in my little apartment, everything has its place and nothing is too surprising. I don't have any pets or small children and, even though he sometimes pretends otherwise, my husband IS capable of feeding himself. No one is dependent upon me for sustenance.

But here, I know that if the horses' water supply fails and I haven't checked it, they could die. If I fail to water the veggie garden, all my mother's hard work will wither. If I can't round up the chickens and get them safely put away at night, they'll be eaten.

And if I anything happens to my Grandmother's cats, I'll be dead. Because she'll kill me.

It's some heavy responsibility.

Which is why last night, after a nice anniversary dinner, I spent forty-five minutes chasing one idiot chicken around and around the garden. All the others found their way back into the enclosure, but not this one. Eventually she sprinted in, but only after two more had wandered back out.

I gritted my teeth and had to remind myself not to be angry at the chickens. It's not their fault. They're really just not very bright.

Eventually, I took a deep breath and unclenched my fists. I had to relax my need for control and order. I went into the house, sat at the kitchen table, and ate a ginger cookie. The dying sun pushed long shadows across the grass.

I waited twenty minutes and went back out to the chicken house. All six sat side-by-side on the roost and looked at me blankly: "What?"

Children Of The Corn

Corn
Originally uploaded by jasonippolito

The day was crystal clear, breezy, and filled with insect hum. I stepped forward through tall green stalks into the cornfield and dropped my bucket. My husband's grandparents disappeared in similar fashion into the waving green.

We were collecting young corn for pickling.

I worked my way down and across rows, as the rest of the world vanished into a rushing, ocean noise of green stalks slapping. A blue sky overhead dipped and wheeled. The upper half of the great black barn was still visible; the only landmark in sight.

I thought of all the creepy stories I'd ever heard about cornfields, and began to understand. How easy it would be to lose oneself in the disorienting mass of reaching, touching, slapping appendages. A trickle of blood flowed from my hand where a stalk had sliced it, fine and precise as a paper cut.

Bursting out into the day with my full bucket, I realized I had finished first. I waited in the bed of the pickup for the grandparents as a greedy blackfly made persistent attacks at my head. Not a sound could be heard from the cornfield. It was as if my two companions had been swallowed up.

I watched the huge field sway and riot in the wind, and thought about the world. Isn't this what we're like? Aren't we so distracted by what is immediately surrounding us that we fail to recognize our place in the whole? How often do we become dangerously entangled and lose sight of the larger reality that surrounds us?

My grandparents-in-law broke through the stalks into the clear day. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Pickled Beets and Green Fields

ball jar
Originally uploaded by theogeo

As a kid, I never truly appreciated all the wholesome things my mother did. She grew vegetables and harvested wild chokecherries, grapes, and elderberries. She spent hours making jars of pickles and jam, syrup and mint jelly.

I thought, "So what?"

I also remember a time when my father must have despaired of me. I was fifteen, and it was a sunny summer day. I was in the living room watching "The Young And The Restless".

"Why don't you go outside and enjoy the day?" he argued.

"It's boring out there," I complained, "What am I supposed to do?"

"Go for a walk in the field."

I sighed loudly and rolled my eyes, "Oh yeah, that sounds exciting."

While this attitude surely didn't typify my entire childhood, I'm sure at that moment my worried Dad must have been thinking 'what have we done wrong?'.

Now, years later, there is hardly anything I enjoy more than a good old-fashioned, rubber-boot-clad walk through the tall grass. And in this age of mass-production and degraded food quality, I have nothing but enthusiasm for the idea of home-produced food. I'm turning now to the wisdom of my mother to help me reclaim the lost arts of self-sustainability.

We all go through phases of waxing and waning interest and enthusiasm. We all have wild inconsistencies and areas where we stumble repeatedly.

I use all-natural toothpaste but sleep with the air-conditioner on.

In attempting to change our lives for the better, we're bound to have moments of hypocrisy. None of us are perfect.

Should we allow this fact to dissuade us from making the attempt? Should we despair when others don't seem to share our excitement? Should we write them off for good?

Or can we relax and hope for the subtle shifts to take place, not only in them, but in us?