Hunting Lessons

Wild things hurt

ronbailey
Human Parts
Published in
2 min readAug 1, 2013

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Photo: Fredrik Öhlander on Unsplash

The most important thing to remember about catching something truly wild is that you can never really hold onto it. Not without literally killing it, or at least without removing some of the wildness, which is often very nearly the same thing. To claim to possess something wild is to change a very fundamental element of what it is.

And if you do manage to catch hold of soft fur, it’s also going to include a lot of teeth and claws. Remember that.

But if you insist on owning something wild, the other thing to remember is not to look directly at what you want. Study from the periphery, study from the corners of your eyes, study from the shadows. Sit quietly, and hope. Hope against hope. Hope that maybe it grows curious about your appearance, or possibly forget for a moment that you are even sitting there in the quiet dark. Maybe it will lose some of its wariness and eventually begin to regard you as just another part of the landscape. It might not even fear you at all, and it might just stare you down until a chill hits your spine and you find that you are the one ready to bolt for safety, instead of the other way ‘round. In any case, proximity will come on its terms, not yours.

Remember all these things. And remember her wild teeth and claws most of all.

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ronbailey
ronbailey

Written by ronbailey

Dad, Geek, Photographer, Teacher, Student, Storyteller

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