Tales of the Outdoors

What do you do to renew your spirit? For the wives of my colleagues, they shop. For me, mall shopping reminds me of the running of the bulls at Pamplona. Something I'd rather not participate in. If it wears out or breaks I can usually find a replacement within 5 minutes of dashing into a non yuppified store.

For myself, I look outdoors to recharge. The woods, the open cornfields of the Midwest, the mountains. The smell of pine trees is my perfume, and the soft retort of a Marlin 1894, a symphony of wonder. There will be no hunting this weekend. It is cold and overcast, and I have a technical obligation out of state very early Monday morning, though that does allow me to have supper with Lawdog and Phlegmy, so life is good.

So for today, rather than hit the malls in the post Thanksgiving feeding frenzy, I can retire to my easy chair happily clutching a book, and let the rest of the world become background noise for a little while. Never spent any real time in the outdoors? Never hunted or fished? Then sit and read with me. Some of my favorites:
Call of the Wild (Aladdin Classics) by Jack London,

A River Runs Through It and Other Stories, Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition by Joel Snyder
The Yearling (50th Anniversary Edition) by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (yes a children's book but a classic)

True North (Harrison, Jim)

The River Why, Twentieth-Anniversary Edition by Dick Hill

The Sporting Club by Thomas McGuane

Ordinary Wolves: A Novel by Seth Kantner

Don't have time to get to a bookstore?Then go to my sidebar and find some wonderful chronicles and photos of the outdoors.

Dan - Out on the Rock
Deer Passion -wife, conservationist, hunter.
My Hunting Spot
Pink Camo Gal
Rasch Outdoor Chronicles
Scent Free Lip Gloss -
Whitetail Woods - Rick K.
Whitetails for Women

Writers like these people were all my inspiration. All are masters at the art of weaving the outdoor world into the fabric of your life. Our world awaits you. You don't have to be a daring adventurer to experience those wondrous moments.

As the only sound in the room is that of the turn of a page and the gentle snore of a black lab by my side, I think back to my last little trek into the outdoors. There were only a couple more days before I'd have to go back to work, and there was still hunting to be done. The sun was already setting, leaving lavender ribbons across the sky, clouds thickening up, leaving just one large clear space above me through which I could just make out the beginning crescent of a new moon. The day was growing cold and I could smell the tang of leaves gone golden with fall's little death, the scent so dense I could barely breathe. I could hear the first stirrings of crickets and frogs and the evening became quiet except for the sound of a friend walking back in with me to the tune of our quickened breath. But the sky was darkening and the deer would soon be hunkered down for the night so we would have to head back to the truck, turning back towards the road while a tiny bit of light remained, utter silence now other than the song of night.

The only deer I'd seen that day had come in at dawn, downwind, and she scented us and bolted before I could even move my finger to trigger. Hunting involves a lot of sitting quietly, and patience, it's not for someone that can not do that. That is what patience is all about, being wholeheartedly engaged in the process that's unfolding, not pushing or demanding. That is what hunting is often about, not bringing anything home for supper, but simply a time with nature to be savored, when delight imbibes through every pore with the glint of a twilight sun off a polished barrel. I really don't care if I didn't get a deer today, there would be tomorrow. I just enjoyed the communion of my friends among the elemental trees, toasting our bounty, even if it came in a can, settling down in soft sleeping bags to dream of the next day.

My hunting is not something for an outdoor show, nor is it something modernized, sleeping in a hotel to drive my Hummer out into the woods. For me, hunting and camping was a fire built with magic and swear words, burned wienies and good beans, woodsmoke and bug spray, paper plates that fell apart. My outdoors was the sound of a hoot owl as the sun set, it's dying rays reflected in a cup of beer as a black lab snoozed happily by my feet. I'm here for those times when I don't wish to sacrifice the wonder of the present moment to work, society or noise. A loner mostly, I want a broad margin to my life. I can sit in the faded sunlight of a doorway between two trees, rifle at ready, from breakfast til dark fall, rapt in a revere in undisturbed stillness and solitude.

As dusk settled in, I wondered about the lapse of time, the evening seeming like a mere moment, time like a season in which I grew like flowers in the night. Philosophers talk about contemplation and the forsaking of work and out here I realize what they meant. The day advances as light comes into it, it's morning, and now it's evening, and nothing memorable is done. My days are not minced into deadlines of a ticking clock or the perusal of things no longer within my grasp. Let mornings be lazy, afternoons pass by in a haze of sunshine, or the a flip of a white tail. If the day becomes wasted in the warm rapture of a sunset as nature sings its song in my ear, what's the harm?

In A River Runs Through It, the author talks about "spots of time," but its only been in the outdoors where I've experienced eternity compressed into a moment. A moment where in an instant you can see your whole life and make a choice. No one can even explain to you what this "spot of time" is until your whole world is a large buck and then the buck vanishes. For an instant, just an instant, there was just the sun glinting off of his back, diamonds of light against the ground. I was so enthralled with the sight of him after waiting for hours, I couldn't even take a breath and in that instant before he was gone, time hitched to a stop. Only then did I realize what I had lost And what I had gained.

But for today, just that one little doe at dawn and now the deepening sky told me the hunt for today was at an end. As the last of the daylight seeped out of the sky, I thought back to work, but only briefly, for my mind now is rippled, not storm tossed. These small ripples of leaves on the ground raised by the evening's wind are the only hint of turmoil in the calm. As the day pulled out of the sky, taking the wind with it. I looked one last time out into the still center of the field, listening for the grunt of that big buck, still out there somewhere. There was nothing but utter and complete stillness, holding my breath, because even inhaling and exhaling was like a cacophony. The animals of day were hunkering down for rest, and the night creatures not quite yet stirring. Twas no breeze, no recognition of air even; it was the sound of nothing and everything, where for just a brief moment in the universe, the clock stopped ticking, and the world hushed.

This was our outdoors. Unidentifiable sounds in the darkness that made you hold your breath at the bottom of your sleeping bag. The laughter of friends as you shared stories of the day. A outdoor adventure book read with a flickering flashlight, its shadow dancing on the wall of a small canvas tent or a small farmhouse that provides you warm shelter, the dusty scent of free adventure. A time when growth may not be on the surface but may be internal and the weekend quietly drifts by in the warm embrace of the woods. But even in the woods, any good day must end.

As we got back into the truck I realized something, looking at these three people that are like family to me. These are life's shining moments. Small minutes of time you can carry inside of you while the chaos of life hurries past.

So turn the page, peel away the tired layers of your life, the noise, the stress. The wild awaits you.