Opening Day

Stephen King said, “The scariest moment is always just before you start. After that, things can only get better.”

This week we asked you to write a memoir post inspired by that statement – in 300 words or less.

It happens every time. I plan. I worry. I walk to get ready.

I get out my backpack, my camouflage clothes and my 30.06 rifle.

Sleep eludes me that Thursday night, because opening day is Friday.

We rise early, Sweet Hubs and I. We want to be in our spot before sunrise.

My heart rises higher and higher in my chest until it feels like it beats at the back of my tongue, hard enough to make me gag.

The sky pinks up. The sun inches higher, at last showing its pop of yellow-orange above the horizon and turning the hills purple.

And there he is. A bull elk. The sun gleams on his pale coat. His antlers, polished brown with ivory tips, crown his magnificent head. 750 pounds of God's stunning handiwork. Several hundred pounds of potential meat for the freezer.

I lift my gun to my shoulder and look through the scope. I will my heart to slow. Deep breath. Find the "boiler room" and focus the crosshairs there. Calm down. Squeeze the trigger. (This is the part where I wince because my gun kicks like a mule and I just got knocked back into last week.)

I take a moment to thank God...and to thank the elk. Then the work begins.


My family is a hunting family. It's how we eat. We have raised our own chickens and beef, but we predominantly eat game meat. Arizona has Coues' Whitetailed deer, mule deer, elk, turkey, bison, Desert Bighorn and Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, antelope, javelina and black bear. I figure I have cooked close to 6,000 meals out of game meat.
Just for fun, visit http://contemplatinghappiness.blogspot.com/2011/01/ground-meat-marathon.html 

Always, feel free to comment! Trish in AZ

April 20, 1994

Choose a moment from your personal history and mine it for sensory detail. Describe it to us in rich, evocative details. Let us breath the air, hear the heartbeat, the songs, feel the fabric and the touch of that moment.

The room was quiet. Only his halting breaths and the distant, low voices at the nurse's station. The blinds were closed and the midday light was a soft, creamy glow at the window.

His outline seemed so small, almost insignificant, beneath the white sheet: a mere shadow of the man he once was. That sharp, almost gasping breathing punctuated the air. I sat by his side and held his hand, just in case he knew enough to know someone was with him. His fingertips were still rough from his years at the jeweler's bench. Diaphonous, parchment-thin skin, prickled with black hair covered the back of his hand. It was so unlike the powerful, capable, hard-working hand I had always known.

Those halting breaths were bitter, adding to the smell of disinfectant and dying in the air. I thought of other days. The smells of campfires, jeweler's rouge, family dinners, sawdust, trout streams and Old Spice. I thought of a little boy who would be losing his cherished grandfather that day: a little boy who was, at that very moment, sharing his dinosaur birthday cake with his kindergarten class. How would I explain this?

A sudden, ragged, stuttered intake of air. A sharp exhale. The breathing stopped. And my father was gone.


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Always, feel free to comment! Trish in AZ

Forgiveness

This week's Remembe(RED) writing prompt was to write about forgiveness;

forgiving someone else, yourself...forgiveness.

I thought I was good at forgiveness. When my sweet husband annoys me or inadvertently hurts my feelings, I am able to let it go quickly. I had a great childhood, but my parents were not very demonstrative or encouraging. Instead of being angry or blaming, I taught myself to look for the love in their actions, focus on that and accept it as a token of love. I certainly didn't stay mad at my children when they made childish mistakes. I even found it in my heart to forgive a brother who had really let the family down in our hour of need. I thought I was good at forgiveness.

Then one day, when I was nearly forty and looking down the barrel of Mother Nature's aging gun, I realized I suck at forgiveness. I hadn't forgiven myself for putting my dreams on hold. I still lambasted me when I looked at myself in the mirror. I hadn't made peace with my flaws or my spirituality and I didn't feel like I had progressed as a human being to the degree I should have. Should have. Could have. Would have.  But didn't.

I decided I better learn more about forgiveness and acceptance and I started with me.

I looked in the mirror. I really looked. It wasn't easy, but I looked. OK, I do have oily skin and a bumpy nose. My hair is very fine and a mousy dark blonde. But I looked beyond that and decided I have nice, large, gray eyes. My lashes are fair but they are quite long and thick. The oily skin has protected me from wrinkles, so I don't think I look as old as I am. The occasional zits contributes to that illusion of youth. I'm not skinny anymore, but neither am I overweight. Just curvy. I'm short, but at least I'm taller than I am wide. All in all, I'm no beauty but I'm pretty damn cute.

Next I examined my faith. After long introspection, I decided that I had come to a closer approximation of true faith than many avid churchgoers will ever see. The heck with them, my faith is between me and God, and we are just fine.

My dreams. Oh, my many dreams. I wanted to be an anthropologist or an archaeologist and a journalist and a Pulitzer-prize winning novelist. I wanted a home and a family. I wanted to have a ranch.

Forgiveness and reality make good bedfellows, so I revisited those dreams. I don't want to be an anthropologist. I'd chip a nail. I don't want to be a journalist because I'd have to be unbiased. I worked hard for all these opinions; I'm keeping them. I'm allergic to animals and hay, so no ranches. I already have a home and a family I cherish.  The last thing was the Pulitzer-prize winning novelist. So I sat down to write the story that had been percolating in my brain. I finished it. I had it e-published. Maybe it will become a best-selling ebook. I'm still chasing that dream.

I am still working on being a better version of myself. I want to be more patient, more creative, more tactful and more energetic. I want to learn how to make chili that won't wound anyone. I want to be better at embracing my talents, instead of feeling different and disapproved of. I want to stop ending my sentences with prepositions. 

At least, I've learned how to forgive myself for not having those attributes now, and learned how to work toward them without scolding me.


Always, feel free to comment! Trish in AZ

A Bit of Lace

When I was a stay-at-home Mom, my closets were straight, my drawers were organized, the refrigerator contained no science-project type leftovers.... it was a different life. Now my house is clean and usually straight, but the closets are a little scary and my dresser drawers are downright terrifying. Let's not talk about the fridge.
So I set out to reorganize my lingerie drawers. I had bras in there from before I gained these 20 pounds. Pretty sure I'll never be a C cup again, so out they go! Pantyhose with a run? Out! Gray socks that should be white? GONE. And then I spied three triangles of lace, one in black, one in white and one in cream. About 24 inches per side, they are big triangles.

I took one out and held it to my face; I could almost smell the incense that permeated it from the last time I attended a solemn high mass. You see, my Dad was a traditional Catholic. As in, from before the Second Vatican Council, finding priests who were still offering the Tridentine mass in Latin. Girls were expected to wear a skirt below the knee and keep their head covered.

Three lace head coverings that I used to wear when I went to mass. With my Dad.

I still consider myself Catholic, even though I haven't been to mass in a long time. Something is missing for me now. There isn't a Latin mass anywhere near here. The modern notion of mass is a foreign experience for me and I don't find any spiritual comfort in. Maybe it's partly because going to church was always something I did with my Dad, and I can't even imagine him sitting next to me in the pew when it's guitar music playing instead of a choir singing.

So it isn't that I fell away from the faith. Quite the contrary, I think my dear, conservative and very Catholic Dad gave me a faith strong enough to stand even without the support of a congregation of like-minded individuals. Now my faith is between me and God and no one else.

Three triangles of lace called into the light my questions about faith versus religion. Three triangles of lace reminded me of my roots. Three triangles of lace brought my Dad back to me for a few moments.

I doubt I'll ever use them again, but I folded them neatly and tucked them back into the drawer.


Always, feel free to comment! Trish in AZ