Women, guns, butterfat and blogging. Jeep

My all time most steady-as-she-goes and straight as an arrow friend, is a funny, beautiful writer who I’ve been nudging to blog since her husband passed away a few years ago. (My success nudging friends into blogging has been stunning.) This morning I was reminded that she is blogger at heart when I got the following email: It is her RSVP to a notice I sent to the InnerKids list for Trudy’s event with Phillip Moffitt this weekend.

Susan - I know this sounds like an odd “one wore blue, the other gray” sort of counterpoint to your email, but I swear to tell the truth, the whole etc. Ironically, I am spending that very day at the LAX Firing Range in Inglewood, going over my (to me, unsatisfactory) pistol skills with a special instructor.

I approach shooting as a form of yoga, concentrating on the breathing, with sensitivity to even the pulsing of my heart. Focus. Be here now. I can do this on the range. I do not shoot or dream of shooting living things. Just printed-paper targets.

To my surprise, the LAX range’s web site now touts the yoga qualities of shooting; I have always felt the yoga side of shooting.

My late husband taught me riflery, and bought me rifles when we lived back East. (I was a member of the local gun club). I joined after it came to our municipal attorney’s attention that I was not really supposed to shoot in our back yard, despite its size and privacy and the huge dirt safety berm my late husband set up for me. I have discovered the satisfaction of range shooting other kinds of firearms more recently, as I continue to find my way without him. It is hardly a passion, and indeed barely a hobby. I would never keep a handgun in the house.

My co-worker and I are going to put on a lunchtime presentation (our company does these things — we had a great one on how to pick a winning horse at the races) called Guns v Butter. She is a cheese aficionado, and I will discuss certain range techniques and she will discuss butterfat/cheese-making principles. Butterfat kills more Americans than does gunfire, but I have no interest in thinking about what that means to our society if anything. . . .

If this email – shot off in a couple of minutes as a rsvp – isn’t a gem of a blog I’ll eat my hat! Mindful moms and others who would like to offer this wonderful writer some encouragement to come join us in the blogosphere please let her know in the comments.