A Reverie on Failure Part 3: The Apex Predators

This is part 3 in a series. Part 1 and Part 2.

Journal Entry

October 16

I’m finally in a tree stand for the first time this year. It’s odd; usually early season hunting must be done up high because the thickets of the woods present no sight lines or shooting lanes. However, on Monday, while on the ground and stalking, I was able to ambush a rather large and beautiful buck. Alas, I was seventy yards away, which is twice my maximum range; he was in the open field, and I could not approach without giving away my presence. Nevertheless, it felt great getting so close to him on the ground. He never saw me, and I turned around and disappeared into the woods and the darkness.

I was reconsidering how it is that the woods are so good for me, to quell my anxieties. The aspect of nature, as I’ve written before, is certainly part of it, that is, the actual experience of the woods is part of it. I have no doubt, however, that if I were not in the woods as a hunter, the experience would be less calming. Anxieties, at least mine, come from a feeling of helplessness, powerlessness over certain actualities of my life—there is a squirrel breaking open something large and hard—such that I feel life’s predators hunting me. This is probably a common experience, an existential experience, especially for those whose families are broken, absent, or distant—the blue jays just went berserk—

I am the hunter right now. The woods are anxious about me. I am the apex predator, armed in self-defense, and also, of course, for lethal offense. This is calming.

The blue jays were going berserk over a beautiful fox, red, healthy, with luxurious fur, an animal almost at the top of the woods’ power structure. He’s headed away from the field, which is good because the blasted thing would harass the deer. I don’t know that fox actually hunt deer (they do hunt fawns, but at this time of the year, the fawns are generally already too wise and strong), but the deer take no chances, and they flee when foxes are afoot.

Foxes themselves have a lethal beauty—oh dear, now he’s harassing the deer, which might be good for me: he’s a considerable distance from me, so it’s likely they’ll circle around to get away from him. This is a signal that I should stop writing and start paying attention.

Commentary

My nearest relative, my second-youngest sister, lives west of Chicago with her husband and daughter. My mom lives in Saint Louis near my youngest sister and her two sons. My first little sister lives in Arkansas somewhere with her husband and daughter. My dad was basically ostracized from his family because he went to college, so I don’t know my many aunts, uncles, and cousins on that side of the family. My mom’s family lives in Germany. My German isn’t terribly good, and they treat me like an American whenever I visit. It’s possible I act like an American. At any rate, we’re divided by time, language, an ocean, and culture.

I’m envious, very envious, of the people here in Western New York, especially Niagara County. Inasmuch as I’ve made a few very good friends here, they have what I do not: these tightly-webbed families, which I think come with far more benefits than hindrances. When Mike and I brought in his deer the other night, both his sons and all his grandchildren were already at hand to welcome him. I’ve been a witness to this spectacle, now several times: it is a marvelous ritual as he field dresses the deer before them; even the little children revel in this bloody, horrible activity, this thing called gutting. With the exterior lights blazing, the squeals of children and adults echoing, so much coming and going and circling, the boys daring each other to pull on the antlers while their grandpa struggles against the deer’s viscera with a sharp knife, the mothers and grandmother chiding them, along with the sights and smells of a deer carcass in process—with all that going on, the evening takes on a macabre carnival sensation. All that’s lacking is a candy apple and some cotton candy. To me it is the fullness of family: the patriarch provides meat while wife, children and grandchildren rejoice in their prosperity, which is now given to them as a gift. Therefore, I’m envious. I don’t have that. I never have. It is my most fervent desire to have it in days to come, but this is Western New York, a region whose families are under much under stress, and who knows how long it can survive?

Will I, in the autumn of my years, be confined within a larger suburb of an urban center far from any hunting grounds?

So, the fox wanders along his inscrutable paths, stirring up the prey while I watch without recourse, preparing to react, but never having the fortuity to anticipate his appearances. We are competing for the same crown. I prepare my arrow in my bow, and I wait, making a claim to the apex.