Bambi

It’s 9:00 in the morning on a Saturday.  My eyes are so tired, my neck hurts, and my house is a wreck.  Why?  Because it’s Opening Day of First Season.
When a man is a hunter, a woman who loves him surrenders everything to the hunt.  I learned this long ago, when I married my husband. Even though we had moved away, and he was not able to hunt his family farmland or even anywhere familiar, he found other hunters, and they found places to stalk their prey.  My husband used to hunt most animals.  Coyotes, Rabbits, Squirrels, Ducks and Deer.  He and his friends would spend late nights chasing the coyotes and early mornings in the timber, chasing the others.
He has tried to explain it to me, sharing the quiet contemplation that goes on in the woods in those early morning and late afternoon hours.  While I’m completely onboard with the solitude, I do not understand the need to freeze while having it!  Also, I don’t need to climb trees or sit for hours on end in the darkness.  Just quiet time alone in the house, typing on my computer is enough for me.  I like the time with my thoughts, and I enjoy the ability to expel them into the virtual world. So I guess we each have our own “thing” that we like to do for “down time”.
Opening day, first season is like the first day that an amusement park opens for the season.  It is full of month and week and night before preparation.  There are clothes that need to be brought out of storage, washed, dried, and hung in an unscented location.  There are searches for blaze orange items and cleaning of boots which are worn only for this occasion.  There is the gun cleaning and shining and preparations of which I do not understand.  There is the purchase of the license and tags.  The gathering of shells and other items used to kill and clean and prepare the meat for consumption.  This is a serious time, and my husband is the most active and concentrated that I ever see him in the house in a year.  Sometimes, like this year, things have been misplaced (we moved), and the search takes even longer than usual.  And then, of course, there’s the pre-hunt target sighting in and shooting practice.
I used to enjoy this time of year, because it meant lots and lots of alone time for me.  I could sleep in as late as I wanted, if I wanted.  I could go shopping all day, with no worry about a husband who was home waiting for supper.  I could paint my nails, take a long bath, read a long book, watch chick flicks or any other non spousal enjoyment activity I could think of.  And I was happy.  And he was happy climbing over brushy burr bushes and up trees, under worn out old railroad tracks and around felled trees.  Fighting mosquito wars or standing in stone while a cotton mouthed snake was nearby.  The two of us could not be more similar and yet opposite in our quiet time, and we were happy to have the time apart, so that we could appreciate being together.  And then we had our two miracle children.  And now, here’s what opening weekend looks like:
He does his thing: prepares, plans, and goes out hunting with the crew from 4:00 am until 7:00 pm.  And he has a wonderful time.  I try to sleep in, but the kids want breakfast, and then they can’t agree on a tv show to watch so I can sleep in the chair.  Or they fight each other, so I have to be up to intervene.  And I get to spend the day alone, doing housework, or laundry, or being a referee to kids disagreements and trying to avoid broken items.  I either keep them occupied or spend the day trying to teach them how to occupy themselves.  Or at least the three year old.  The five year old is now able to watch TV, play barbies, color and play on the computer by herself.  And so, it’s no longer a dual vacation/solitude time.  I’m glad he gets his time in the woods, but I’m pretty sure, unless I schedule it, I’m not really going to have time like that to myself until the kids are teenagers.  And then I will probably miss them.