Ready, Aim...

On Sunday morning I shot to kill. This is past of a progression which began with walks in the woods with my dad while he toted a rifle during deer season. When I met Bill I started shooting at clay pigeons with some regularity (and missing). Then I took hunter's safety and got a license. During the past two falls, I sat in a duck blind, holding a loaded shotgun. And on Sunday I aimed and fired. Except I didn't exactly aim. And I missed. I'm not sure I missed because I am a terrible shot, or because I didn't really want to.

Hunting is a loaded topic. I could say any number of things about it. I could try and write about how I used to be a vegetarian. I could expand upon my earlier post on local food, hormones, and organic eating. I could share Bill's duck recipes. But none of that really matters if you are against hunting, and I certainly understand why people feel that way, having once shared the opinion that hunting is wrong.

But no, instead I will just say that I hate getting up early in the morning, I hate being cold, and I don't really care if I bring home dinner. What I love is sitting in silence with my husband in the woods, or on the water, in a blind, in a boat. I love the way the silence ends after dawn has passed and we talk about things we don't talk about anywhere else. I love the way he plans these trips together, bringing me a chair, packing a snack, lending me the warmest socks. I love the way he is so happy to have me with him, that he doesn't go hunting to be alone, or to have MAN TIME, or to get a break from me, or any of the sad reasons so many women I know give for being hunting widows. (I love that it is not football.) I love that he has something he does that brings him joy, and that he loves to share it with me.

And I will go again, maybe not this fall, but next. I may even shoot again, but I doubt I will aim. It's a little bit nerves, a little bit bad eye sight, a little bit disinterest, and a little bit moral ambiguity. But I am glad to be there.