Seek and Ye Shall Find (Antlers)

The Backstory

I’ve been getting a lot of emails lately. Probably because I’ve been sending a lot of emails. (That’s a life lesson right there: you get out what you put in).

The emails I am sending are full of hope. Dreams packaged in tiny words. Baited breath in every dear ms. and dear mr. Stomach cramps and intestinal knots as I re-read the email once, twice, ten times to make sure there isn’t a typo. I second guess myself with each new email: what buzz word will make this person look twice? Hope and desire and wish after wish, but there aren’t enough shooting stars for the number of emails I’ve been sending.

Unfortunately, the emails I’m getting back are less…hopeful.

Imagine you have a crush. You pass said crush a love letter. You really like this person. Maybe it’s a romantic crush, maybe it’s just someone you want to be your friend. Anyway, you pass your crush a little note. The person takes it, they light a match. And the whole thing flares, then disintegrates. Ashes, like it never existed at all.

A little dramatic, maybe, but that’s what each reply feels like. Because they say the same thing, one after another after another. No.

Emphatically.

They’re genial. Kind. Encouraging. But they are a no. No, I don’t believe in you. No, I don’t see this being successful. No, you’re just not that interesting. No, you are not unique.

The Gasoline this Car Runs on…

My Dad and I camped in Gunnison County beside a rushing river. We arrived on the evening of April 30 and set up our tent. We brought, Nika, our eleven-year-old chocolate lab. While we set out two camp chairs and searched for the Big Dipper, Nika ran circles around the camp like she was three, splashing in the water and rolling through fallen pine needles. She felt it too. The magic of the mountains.

The next morning, we meandered toward our first spot. Elk are habitual creatures, so we were directed toward a specific area by my brother, who found antlers in this spot the year before.

But it’s still a toss-up. Maybe elk didn’t pass through at exactly the right time this year. Maybe poachers scooted on up here a few weeks ago and cleaned the place out.

It’s kind of like sending an email to a literary agent. You know she accepts fantasy submissions. You write fantasy. Send.

We walked into the wilderness.

Hope.

I Would Walk 500 Miles

We didn’t. We walked 10.

Gunnison County is sage brush and dark streaks of timber. Open skies and patches of icy snow. The brush of the breeze and dry, musty air. Fifty deer on the next hill over, every wet, black eye trained on you and every ginormous, velvety ear pricked to hear your footfalls.

The sun was shining, so wading through the occasional knee high snow patch was a good way to cool off my hot feet. We walked in lines and Nika ran back and forth between my dad and me a hundred times. A thousand times. She doesn’t understood antler hunting; she just wants to know why the heck we can’t walk in the same direction.

Within the first hour, my dad found a chalky deer antler. That means it’s from last year and the sun has been beating down upon it, turning it white and gritty, like it’s on the brink of falling apart. It reminds us that even though people crawl all over these hills in the spring, they still miss stuff. We still miss stuff.

We are probably missing stuff right now.

When I was about twelve, my dad told me a Wayne Gretzky quote. The actual wording is bit debated, but in it’s generally accepted form, he said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

It’s why I keep drafting those emails. It’s why I keep clicking send.

And then, I saw it. And it couldn’t have been anything else, and I went, duh, that’s what an antler looks like.

And it didn’t even matter than it was a tiny one.

So I walked. And I thought about things. And I looked for antlers.

And I found some.

I probably did walk past others. Maybe I spotted one and was drawn to the left when a bigger one could have been off to the right. Maybe the biggest one of all lay beneath one of the endless snow patches, and fresh snowfall from a week ago had rendered it invisible.

But you do the best you can.

And sometimes you take a break from checking your email and go tramp around in the woods.

Antler Up

I do it because I like it. Because it’s different from what my friends do. I do it because it feels like it’s part of me, like it makes sense with my soul. And, if I’m are lucky enough to find an antler, it’s a little something extra special. A cherry on top. But, when I don’t find an antler around the next bend or beneath that tree that looks so perfect it really should have had an antler beneath it, I feel a little regret. When it happens for hours, tree after tree of promise, of possibility, and yet nothing, it gets to be a bit crushing. But I don’t give up. Because there is always a chance there’s an antler beneath the next tree.

You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

So I’ll keep writing. And clicking send.