Hunting Stories

When they opened the door and entered the diner with their heavy boots, everyone stared. They always did no matter who entered, no matter what. People stared, and then came the head nods.

“Hey. Hi, how ya doing?” the father would say while raising his hand in an informal salute to the various hunters sitting all around. This diner, filled with tacky train memorabilia was a home to orange. It thrived during opening weekend, and maybe just maybe they could use the money to replace the water stained painting in the backroom. Or, maybe the 70 year old waitress could have a weekend off.

They preferred her. Knowing that she covered the tables in the backroom, they passed the clean empty booths near the door, and instead chose the only available one in the back. They waited patiently as the waitress came bustling in with a coffee pot in one hand and a wet rag in the other. The table was covered in sticky syrup and mug-rings.

“What can I get you guys to drink? Sprite for you right? Orange Juice? Apple Juice? Anybody need coffee?” She would ask as three of them flipped their mugs over simultaneously. Two drank it black, the other, obviously young, added a creamer and a pound of sugar. After licking the sugary-spoon, she picked up her menu and decided to quick focus on breakfast before she was completely lost in thoughts of the morning.

The family favorite was kielbasa, half an order of potatoes-extra crispy, one egg (over-easy for the girl over-medium for the rest), and wheat toast, but that’s because there wasn’t much to choose from. Here, you got white or wheat, and the girl was thankful because the extra decision would make it that much harder, and she was hungry enough to eat the menu.

“So did you get anything?” The mother would ask, always prematurely, and always averted by the father.

“Well,” he would respond. “We have a story for you.” His eye brows rising as he lifted his mug to take a drink, and say no more. No, the mother would have to wait until the breakfast was set down to know if there would be venison in the freezer, and she was growing impatient due to the shortage of ground-meat. The hunting party would entertain their mother/wife with little stories, like the squirrel that came so close one hunter saw a birthmark, or the deer the sister saw that just wouldn’t come any closer. Impressively, and magically, the waitress would seemingly deliver the breakfast within minutes.

“Can I get you anything else?” She asked, already eyeing up an empty mug two tables away.

“Mustard,” The girl and father would request simultaneously. Amid the scraping forks and inhaling breaths, the mother would try once more.

“So, did you get anything?”

The three hunters exchanged looks and smirked.

“We have a story for you.”

Meditation

“Now tell me your problems,” said the tree as it kneaded a knot out of the woman’s lower back.

“I’d rather not,” she replied. “I’d rather rest.”

“Ok you close your eyes now,” the tree responded. “Just relax.”

…

“What are you thinking about?” The tree asked, noticing the woman’s eye settled on the rising sun.

“My friend,” she responded.

“She was beautiful like the horizon,” the tree said, gently shaking it branches, playing a musical eulogy. The woman watched as a leaf fell down to the ground.

“I loved a man,” she said picking one up, pulling it apart in her fingers.

“And he thinks about you,” the tree reassured. A turkey gobbled across the land, back from where she came from.

“It’s too far away?” The tree asked.

“Yes,” she answered. “It won’t come here.”

“So we will wait for another,” the tree replied.

…

“My feet are numb,” the woman said as she slowly pushed her feet straight out before her.

“Stand up. That will help you feel better. Move slowly, and I hide you so you won’t be seen.”

“Thank you,” she replied twisting her neck. “I sit around too much,” she said, rubbing her legs.

“Then go for a walk,” the tree replied.

“I need to stay still right now,” she answered. “I will when I get back.”

“Ok. When you get back,” the tree nodded.

…

The woman heard a distant shot, and watched as the day slowly left her. She stood up pressing a palm against the tree for support.  She hefted her shotgun over her shoulder and sighed preparing to leave.

“I want to be…”

“Then be,” whispered the tree. A group of turkeys gobbled from atop a roost nearby. “I will see you tomorrow.”

"All Things of Nature"

My body is filled with sunlight, boiling beneath my skin (because I’ve been trapped indoors for too long). Soon I must return to where I am from.

I am happiest in the dark early mornings, before the birds are awake, when I am blind in the woods and finally focused on what’s going on around me, inside me. There is no hum of machinery, slowly and constantly fraying my soul. There is no concrete, only snapping twigs if I venture off course carelessly.

When I am so lucky, I can lean against my family, and with their support watch the horizon as new color marks another day. The sunset brings pink, the flushed cheek of a friend whose face I can no longer touch; the orange of the pressed flower I sent my grandmother in the last letter. I wonder where it is now, that flower? Broken in the bottom of a storage box? Pressed into a bible? It shouldn’t matter. Soon all is the shade of blue, of white, and there are flowers growing beside me.

Here in my home, lessons are easier yet much more complex than the foreign language of classroom conversation. I am growing as an elm, my mistakes turning into mushrooms at my feet. I can be as a fiery red thorn bush, aggressive and angry, ripping at you if you come too close. Tomorrow I will be an apple tree. You can bury your favorite dog under me.

My home is my soul which belongs in nature. I am the woods and it is me. I breathe because it lets me, I breathe because it tells me that life should be so simple. And I breathe because of the wind, because when it blows I am inspired to finally exhale. I cry because even the clouds need release.

And I smile, because every morning there’s a sunrise, and my promise to return.

No reflection here

Does anybody besides myself ever have those ridiculous moments where the inner you hates the outer you because the outer you is making you as a whole look like a dumby, a biatch, or completely out of character. Um- theme of the day! Chatty kathy or more appropriately chatty katy had no filter.

This is what happens when I come back to "civilization" after immersing myself in the woods. I lose the inner-reflection, I forget to tell myself to slow down and think about things, and then feel like poo for apparently no reason until I make myself sit down to figure out that I am indeed mad...at myself. I need to take a walk.

Last Morning of MN gun deer

I sat barely concealed in the woods, on a blue chair, in bright orange, waiting for a parade of deer. At least thats what it looked like. Ha, I even had my legs crossed, my giant boot-blanketed foot looking like the stylish stiletto in the woods. I was on a slight slope you see, and this classy sitting position, gave me an arm rest. I would have been embarrassed had any one walked by.
The only things I saw today were squirrels, big ones, small ones, all loving to create a good startling racket. It was a good workout though, raising my gun up every two minutes because of a deceiving rustle. But, it was always a squirrel.
It is unfortunate that the only deer action on my last morning was a deer blowing because it smelled me this morning. It was still pitch black. There was nothing I could do. You know, I'm going to retract the term "unfortunate" from my other sentence, because its not. There was nothing unfortunate about the morning at all. That's better.


Bottle up the calm and save it for later, when it can weigh down all the unnecessary worries. It better last because I won't be back for awhile.

Zzzzzz

Man am I tired (and its only 9 p.m.) so I'm going to make this brief.
I almost got a doe this morning. Right away too, like 6:30 a.m. It was staring right at me. My gun was raised, my sight on, by safety off. I was slowly squeezing the trigger and before it could completely clamp and activate, the doe raised its tail and ran the way it came. Shoot. I mean I didn't shoot-Dang.
No more close ones after that.
And now its evening. I just got done barely making a dent in the growing pile of unfortunate school responsibilities. I can feel the timeline choking me a bit, and that unfortunately is effecting the loveliness of my time in the woods. No way am I going to feel guilty. This is what learning is! Right now its not just about writing fictional plots and feelings associated with pent-up-ness. I want to experience and get my face wind-burned! I want to do so much in a day (really, a full day from beautiful sunrise to sundown), that sleep is both a mental escape and a physical rest. Usually I'm just a fatty who falls on the bed in habit. Now I'm a hiker who's worn to the bones, crawling in for a few hours before another early morning ahead.
In fact, that bed is calling, and tomorrows the last day. I have some doe-tags to fill.

Bang Bang (but really just one bang)

I kept falling asleep all morning. Its amazing I can zonk out so effectively with my chin tucked into my collarbone. I would open my eyes in panic and scan around me. Twenty seconds later my head would be lolling forward again. I ended up standing for awhile to jolt the senses, and not long after sitting again, I saw movement and I watched as a camouflaged tan body made its way up the bluff (on a deer path) and in my direction. I frantically moved my hand at my side, shaking it to get my dads attention beside me. I even hit the gnarled bark of the giant oak tree next to me, just short of panicking to let  him know. I discretely pointed to the deer, and he put his scope on it. I could tell it was a buck. I couldn't tell how big it's antlers were.
It made its way closer, slowly climbing  to my right. I watched through my sight, I kept the shaking red dot focused in the right place when he finally said "take the shot." That's all I needed to hear (that the buck was big enough to take), so when it stopped, perfectly displaying its side for me to shoot, I slowly squeezed the trigger. Whoops. The safety was still on.
Shaking even more, I watched as the deer made its way through thick brush. Dang it! I blew it. Its not going to stop now (insert additional frustrated shaking that inspires additional panic shaking). When it moved out of the brush, I followed with my gun, and again pulled the trigger (only this time the safety was effectively disabled). I shot him in the neck and he dropped instantly.

I got my first buck on 11-11-11. I already envision the mini antlers on display in my future outdoorsy, fire-placed library in my cabin home up north. I'll look at them, scanning to the very large and unbelievably impressive trophies next to it (including the red stag) and I'll think, yes, that one was memorable because it was a first, because it made my heart skip, because my sister was there to give me a knuckle bump, and because once again I had my dad there to tell me it was of legal size, to tell me to take the shot, and to reteach me how to field dress the deer (and take over when I puncture the stomach).