07 April

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So, today is my mother’s birthday. It also is the fiftieth — 50! —anniversary of my father’s death. Most of my lifetime ago. She would have been 87. He is forever 43. A birthday and a suicide. I think about how angry, how desperate, how… sad my father must have been to stage his dramatic exit on this particular day — her birthday — and also that it was kind of a jerky thing to do. I have a right to judge him, and to comment on the protocol of his suicide, because that was one of the things he left behind for me. My mother stayed alive, and worked hard to take good care of my brothers and me when we needed being taking care of. I celebrate her birthday, and who she was, and keenly wish she hadn’t had to leave so soon. As for my father… I wish the same things.

I am grown now, a mother myself, yet still, somewhere, I am their child. Time is such a spirally thing, but some relationships are once-in-a-lifetime. When I was growing up, I never associated the two events — his death on her birthday — partly because I was seven years old when it happened and also because, well, it was my mother’s birthday! and birthdays are truly a wonderful thing to celebrate. Life and good win out over sad and loss, hopefully always and forever.

In fact, our lives are made up of good and sad and sometimes inexplicable loss, as well as failure and outright mistakes, and all the rest of the stuff we do and that happens. I am trying to make sense, or at least, observe, two things that happened on this day. My mother was born, and later, when things fell apart for them, my father chose to end his life.

The weather was mild today, and I sat outside after dinner for a long time, watching the light fade. Frogs have begun their marvelous, astonishingly loud evening chorus. The leafless trees silhouette against the sky, a view I never grow tired of seeing. There is a crescent moon, waxing, I believe, towards full. I sit in the dark, with my hood up against the chill night, thinking. I have no grand insight, except that I am here, right now, and glad to be so.

Yes, I know it’s April.

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A gourd I grew a long time ago.

Never quite got to documenting the color for March until now, but I knew it was gold — the color of the dormant lawn emerging from under the snow, that one kind of oak that holds onto its leaves through winter,  all the other leaves, fallen, pressed flat by the weight of the snow. Lula’s fur, a lot of local granite, shed pine needles, my favorite earrings.

This kind of oak drops its leaves in the fall.

Granite

Gold shades effortlessly into other colors, like yellows and browns and delicious oranges, and it’s easy to get confused. Terra cotta, you are not gold.

Pine needles mostly stay on the tree, but some do not.

Since white left, gold has been the dominant color of my world, these few acres of yard and woods. (That will change, of course, as green returns. I might need to do a few months of the greens because it’s such a glorious color.) But March was gold, let us say hello (and goodbye).

For some reason, this kind of oak does not drop its leaves in the fall.

in which we have a home range

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the target at 20 yards

Mr Speed has krafted a practice target, and measured out a range in our backyard! After researching materials and a few failed foam-buying attempts, he used cardboard and tightly wadded old clothes to create a very satisfactory and serviceable target.

the target, cardboard and wadded up old clothes

It is mildly amusing for two designers to shoot arrows at a Mac Pro box. I still need to make some bullseye designs, but we were so keen on practicing in our own backyard. I already know what will be on the first one: a deer tick.

in which we watch 3D practice at a clubhouse in the woods

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giant bunny target (not currently in use)

On Freddy’s invitation, we went to Narragansett Bow Hunters to watch their indoor league shoot 3D targets. The NBH clubhouse is a long rectangular no-frills building at the end of a hard-packed dirt road through the North Kingstown woods, and is “Rhode Island’s only club devoted exclusively to Archery”. Freddy is the very friendly, incredibly knowledgeable and helpful godfather of archery we met at Tangy’s. Like our teacher Mr. Dean, Freddy is a great storyteller, absolutely hilarious. As for 3D targets… well. I am a rank n00b, but they really are a world unto themselves.

Totally conflicted here, being an animal lover, as in alive and furry and wild and free, but also an animal flesh eater, as in venison and wild boar are two of the most delicious things I have ever tasted. 3D targets, in archery, are a means to an end — the skillful dispatching of an edible animal to a cooking pot or the elimination of a noxious competitor for your garden. But also, 3D targets are made of molded, painted foam with replaceable “vital” areas, and are just surreal to look at, on a par with slightly sinister manikins at amusement park exhibits. 3D targets are sad and icky, but that’s not really the point. Archers are shooting at what they represent, not what they actually are. I’m trying not to over-think this, but it was, like, the first time I’ve ever seen a room full of them — with parts of fake Christmas trees set up as shrubbery — and it made an impression.

Of course the best part of the evening was meeting and talking with some of the league members. There were 30 or so men and their sons, of every age, shape, size and style you can imagine in a small-town, small-state club. Their range of equipment and accessories ran several gamuts, too, from handmade exquisite to functional and utilitarian, from basic to hi tech to super ultra magical. One gentleman held his black-and-white fletched arrows in a quiver he had made from an entire skunk; another had one made from a raccoon. They were beautiful. I saw at least 30 different bows and styles of shooting. The atmosphere was relaxed and friendly, a gathering of outwardly very different people who, for all their various reasons, love archery.

Clearly, I have much to learn. I don’t know if I’ll ever shoot my arrows at 3D targets. But I do like shooting arrows, and I feel there is a place somewhere for me here in the greater archery community. The short story is that I downloaded the forms, and Mr Speed and I have applied for membership at Narragansett Bow Hunters.

in which we acquire stabilizers and string wax

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discarded and abused canoe, West Warwick, Rhode Island

Our archery range is located in downtown West Warwick, in the very large basement of a building on Main Street.

the backside of a building that is not Tangy’s Archery, on Main Street

Mr Speed has temporarily solved my continuing inability to wink my right eye — and therefore my ability to aim — by popping out the left lens on a pair of reading glasses, and gluing black felt over the right. They work quite well, far better than the pathetic band-aid I desperately tried using last week (much to the amusement of all archers present), and more comfortable and less dramatic than the eye patch I attempted wearing. What a difference focus makes!

Mr. Dean gave us a few stabilizers — a weighted rod that sticks out off the front of a bow — to try out, and I was very pleased that the one I liked best was the one with the coolest design (at least in our price range): a 30-inch, multi-rod Cartel Balkan Al/Carbon. And, they both fit in our case, on the arrows side.

Then we were told that we need bowstring wax, to keep our strings… waxed (and “clean and healthy”). Later, I learned

“Waxing the bowstring is necessary for a number of reasons. First, under high magnification, the fiber make-up of the string is visually different from what you may think. Millions of extremely fine fibers going in many directions make up a single strand. The general flow is unidirectional lengthwise with a clockwise twist. All those millions of fibers need a lubricant between each other in order to not create friction or any other force to compromise their integrity. The more unidirectional fiber flow, the better the string.”

I never, ever want to compromise the integrity of my bowstring, and I totally seek unidirectional fiber flow, so we got some special bowstring wax, too. Actually, Mr. Dean gave us a tube.

Case is getting heavy!

in which we get our arrows

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an homage to Loteria!

Mine are the tasteful gray and yellow; Mr Speed’s are the garish black and bright pink. (When I showed them to a small group of friends and asked them to identify which ones were whose, they all instantly guessed correctly.) Here’s an amazing fact about these arrows: the tips never need sharpening.

because most people stop with the Z… but not me

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I walk with Dr. Seuss

Sometimes it’s possible to trace the source of a lifelong affection to a single defining moment. For me, it’s typography and On Beyond Zebra!

The places I took him!
I tried hard to tell
Young Conrad Cornelius o’Donald o’Dell
A few brand-new wonderful words he might spell.
I led him around and I tried hard to show
There are things beyond Z that most people don’t know.
I took him past Zebra. As far as I could.
And I think, perhaps, maybe I did him some good…

Dr. Seuss was a grand influence on my life. I discovered I knew how to read — hooking up words with the shapes of letters — entertaining my younger brother by reciting the memorized verses while showing him the pages of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and The Cat in The Hat.

Since that moment, my enjoyment of reading and the configurations of letters has been intrinsically linked. The achievement of On Beyond Zebra! is the suggestion that I could make up my own letters, and therefore express something that was uniquely me. Something necessary, and before that, impossible. And to do so… beautifully. With letters!

a personal favorite, wum

So, on beyond Zebra!
Explore!
Like Columbus!
Discover new letters!
Like wum is for Wumbus,
My high-spouting whale who lives high on a hill
Who never comes down ‘til it’s time to refill.
So, on beyond Z! It’s time you were shown
That you really don’t know all there is to be known.

It was this exhortation, to explore and discover, combined with the reminder that I did not, in fact, know all there is to be known, that keeps me curious and eager to learn new stuff. And to draw alphabets, and study all the ways they have ever been drawn. Different shapes have different meanings, and in typography they are subtle and profound. Words are power. Dr. Seuss knew children can understand this.

in which we are fitted for bows and arrows

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limbs (bolt end), bow stringer

After minor deliberation, we chose KAP T-Rex takedown recurve bows, slightly-better-than-absolute-beginner level. They have a riser (the thing you hold on to) made of cast aluminum, and laminated wood and fiberglass limbs that slip on and off with a satisfying system of set screws and bolts. We are trusting our teacher’s recommendations here totally. I love being a beginner!

magnetic arrow rest, grip

Mr. Dean is making our arrows to fit us exactly. Many charts were consulted, measurements taken, and performances observed. Mine will have gray and yellow feathers; Mr Speed chose black and bright pink. The arrow shaft is Easton Jazz Purple, described on their website as “an economy shaft for youth and archers shooting low poundage bows… exciting, durable, hard anodized violet color with highlights.” A girl’s first arrow should be a special thing.

upper limb tip, bow string

We got a hardshell case big enough to hold both of our disassembled bows and all the weird new stuff that goes with them: bow strings (also handmade by Mr. Dean), a bow stringer, complex bowsights, finger guard thingies, a little bag of tiny hex wrenches, and our beautiful arrows.

The whole process took about three hours, and about $800. Happy birthdays!

where the limb fits into the riser

In between being measured and assessed, I chatted with a gentleman as he was packing up his gear, who has been shooting arrows for 24 years. His stuff was futuristic space age jetpack amazing, like when you’re 11 years old and you get to hang out with your friend’s teenage sister, and she has beautiful hair and is really nice to you. Something to aspire to.

That’s another thing I’m really enjoying — a peek into this archery community. There is a diverse cast of characters, and they’re thus far all so very encouraging of our decision to learn. For now, though, I’m an outsider, a fledgling: hopeful, determined, wanting their help and their welcome.

Both of my parents were archers. I claim a place here, in the lineage. Last night, invoking my father, I shot my first bull’s eye.

Not only the bull’s eye, but the x.

limb (bolt end), handmade bow string with brass nock point

in which I learn of something I cannot do

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My mother, Louise, circa 1957. Apparently, archery is genetic.

After the success of our family archery debut in Pacifica, Mr Speed and I took another lesson, an hour long, with a local teacher named James Dean. Mr. Dean has been shooting arrows for 44 years, and his enthusiasm is as fresh and apparent as the depth of his knowledge. He is also funny, and a storyteller, and he kind of reminded me of Dennis Leary. We were both captivated.

We used recurve bows with sights this time, and one of the assessments Mr. Dean made was to determine our dominant eye for the purpose of sighting and aiming. Mine is my right eye, and so, at final aim before loosing the arrow, I was to close my left eye. Except… my left eye will not close independently of my right eye.

Go ahead. Try it. Can you close your left eye while keeping your right eye open? You can? Fine. Well, can you close your right eye while keeping your left eye open? At the same time? You can? Oh, don’t be so innocently smug.

WTF. Somehow, I have gotten along my entire life — until this moment — being able to close only my right eye. What’s more, I didn’t even know that I don’t know how to close my left eye at will. Why this gap in core competency? Where were my parents when I was failing to develop this ability?  What else do I not know I can’t do?!

After offering to smack me in the left eye to close it, Mr. Dean quickly reassured me that I could then sight and shoot with both eyes open… until he determined that, in fact, I was focusing with my left eye. Which I guess goes a long way (finally) in explaining my notorious left/right directional dyslexia. Or something. Anyway, my homework this week is to learn how to close my left eye and at the same time keep my right eye open.

Though I am an old dog, I can learn new tricks. I will make up for my obviously impoverished and deficient childhood, which is when I assume regular people learned this stuff. (Let it be known, however, that I can do the “live long and prosper” sign. On both hands.)

And we’ll be back at the archery range next Friday, for our new date night. I cannot wait.