View from the North 40: This is long, but surprisingly pointless

You know a word that we don’t hear very often? Giddy. And that’s a cryin’ shame.

Well, of course, giddy doesn’t mean cryin’ shame. It means happy, joyful, elated, lightheartedly silly, but it’s a cryin’ shame we don’t hear about it happening more often.

I was giddy Wednesday, and it took me hours to put a name to that feeling.

I just couldn’t stop grinning and saying things like “I just feel all, I don’t know, whoooo!” Then it struck me. “I feel giddy. I mean, like, reeeally giddy.” And it was a surprise, I’ll admit that, a total surprise.

The instruments of my giddiness are a bow and the fistful of arrows I bought at the very end of January. Random, right?

This was a late Christmas present to myself. And I started teaching myself to shoot by watching videos on YouTube, which makes experts of us all, right?

I’ve had enough upper body injuries and abuses over the years that I’ve been trying to start at a slow pace, a ridiculously slow pace. For the first two days I only shot four arrows, and I could feel it. Also, after the day’s four arrows, I knew I needed to go review the how-to videos because, well, let’s just say I’m not a natural.

The first day, I stood back a good 60 feet and took aim, uphill, at my stack of round bales through the big barn door and let fly. What could go wrong? I have a 12-foot high wall of hay there.

The third arrow went a little high by about, hmmm, 8 feet or so because, of course, I wasn’t supposed to be aligning my eye, the arrow tip and the target to aim. Archery involves having to factor in angles of trajectory into this aiming business. I knew that through the magic of YouTube, and yet, didn’t remember in the newness of the moment.

As an additional note to self, the farther you are from your target, the more exaggerated the incorrect angles of flight will be. For example, if you hold your your first and middle fingers up in a V shape the tips of your fingers are a couple inches or so apart, but if you could extend the lines of that V to the nearest wall the ends would be 2, 5, maybe 10 feet apart depending on how far away the wall is. The farther you go, the farther off that angle is.

And, well, what I’m trying to say is that my arrow pierced through the top edge of the top round bale, about 11 feet up, and stuck in the far wall of the barn at the base of the rafters – roughly 16 feet off the ground. That was wild.

To my credit, though, I still proved that I could hit the narrow side of the barn, just sayin’.

Day 2, I wised up and closed the distance between myself and my target to about 20 feet, and did much better. But my wimpy shoulders and neck, feeling a bit taxed by the new activity, wobbled on the fourth arrow, which then went wide by about two feet to the outer edge of the round bale, and disappeared. Gone.

Yeah, I don’t know what else to say. I mean, I looked, I shredded a bit of hay out of the bale digging around in the search, I hunted behind the barn some, but that arrow is buried in that haystack somewhere and I won’t get it back until I start feeding from that end of the row. It’s going to be like Christmas when I find that sucker.

So we’re up to Day 3 in the archery saga. On the third day, I bought more arrows. I also talked my husband into giving me a neck and shoulder massage. I haven’t needed more arrows, but the massages have become a part of my regular routine. It’s difficult for us hardcore athletes to stay in peak condition.

I was actually thankful for the bitter cold snap, so I could heal up a bit, but I’ve been practicing pretty regularly since temps hit double digits on the plus side. I can now get through three sets of seven arrows (can’t wait till I find that eighth arrow!) before I get too tired. I do this both right-handed and left-handed, trading off after each set. That’s 42 shots and I’m done. Not exactly setting the world on fire, I know.

And yet I am beyond happy when I get done. I was happy to shoot four arrows and be done in, so 42 is amazing to me. Wednesday, I shot a 6- to 8-inch group twice, once right-handed and then again left-handed. I was so excited after the first feat, I had to take a photo, and the second tight group was just, whoooo, photo bonus land.

I grinned the rest of the day. Giddy.

I literally have no point to this column. It took me two days to pare this article down to one aspect of I wanted to say about my new archery adventure, so I think an actual point to the column is a little much to ask of me.

Y’know, giddy does also mean dizzy and disoriented.

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My apologies, but you can expect more archery adventures in the future at http://www.facebook.com/viewfromthenorth40 .