Cavewoman Revisited

Despite a purely academic upbringing and a lifelong commitment to vegetarianism, I can somewhat proudly state that I am a formidable predator. Or, I could be if I so chose. For some odd reason, I am blessed with the skills that make for the most successful examples of a predatory species. Evolution and genetics tag-teamed to give me the ability to thrive in the Paleolithic world, yet placed me in our modern tar pit.

I am cunning, intelligent, manipulative, relentless…I analyze, visualize, try and learn from both mistakes and successes, investigate, take risks…My brain works with the rapidity of an electron screaming through an wire. From sight to action, my response time is blisteringly short. And pity the person or object that finds itself between me and my objective. A pile of smoldering ash…

Mentally, my brain is hard-wired for predation mode. I am not passive; I have not the qualities of prey. I do not manifest the persona of a victim and cannot even fall back on the time-honored female tradition of crying on demand. I am aggressive in action, determined in deed. I stalk, I pursue, I track down, I take down, I feed on my success.

My cranial computer also has the ability to hard-code search images. I can flip quickly through a 20 page document and find single words in the tens of thousands of characters with which I am presented. I often catch myself looking back at some piece of text, at first without knowing why, until I then consciously spy a word that has been of interest or importance for me that day. The same is true for objects. I can find anything. I don’t mean lost relatives or some such nonsense, but ask me to find an individual in a crowd and it shall be done. Driving in my car can be a nuisance in that I am always spotting objects of interest lying camouflaged in fields and woodlands. The smallest turtle sunning on a log will not escape my notice. This was the source of much annoyance to my ex-husband. He was (and likely still is) a member of the upper echelon in the birding community. The type to travel at a moment’s notice to any part of the country when a rare bird sighting was reported. And, to give him credit, his ornithological skills were strong. One of the people whose word on a bird identification was taken as gospel.

But he couldn’t find birds as well as I could. I am, by education, an ichthyologist. But, I do enjoy nature and, being the dutiful young wife, did my best to share my husband’s interests. I took up birdwatching and found that it was something for which I had an uncanny talent. I couldn’t always identify what I found, but I could do a few things. First – I had the ability to spot birds. The “bird” form was branded into my visual cortex and anything that fit that profile was immediately spotted and processed. Everyone else saw a tree; I saw the Brown Creeper motionless on the trunk. No bush, field, beach, fence line, etc. was ever empty to me. I would often remain in the car or under a tree reading a book while a band of premier birders investigated an area. The simmering anger was tangible as I meandered over to them, sandwich crumbs falling from my jacket, to ask – hey, what’s that in the bush? Something they missed was the unspoken answer.

Beyond this, though, I have luck, and a predator needs luck. I don’t actually believe in luck; I believe that some people have brains that more successfully process environmental cues at the subconscious level. The actions one takes are based partly on this analysis. My brain “sees” a myriad of minute, subliminal, seemingly-unconnected things and puts me in the right place at the right time with the right tools…Since it was not planned or intentional, it gets termed “luck.” Really, it is the extreme manifestation of the predatory mind. After the birding community hurdled their urge to hide my body in a flooded rice field, they began to realize my worth. My suspicious mind was always awhirl when phone calls to our home to announce a bird report were always ended with “don’t forget to bring your wife along.” So, along I would go, as I enjoy a promenade in the wild. And, I would toodle around a bit with the group until I bored of their single-subject conversations. I would then go off on my own to photograph wildflowers, explore streams or break out a book and take a welcome read.

And that’s when it would happen. No matter the wrong turn on the way to the car, the direction to the refuge center’s loo, the amount of time spent hanging upside down from a tree limb – I would find “it.” “It” was the bird around which the whole trip was centered. The rarity that had the birding community combing field and forest like the FBI hunting an escaped convict. The creature that had sparked a Level 1 Anxiety Alert throughout the Audubon Society. Birders carefully report and document the location of sightings and, logically, concentrate search efforts in areas where a bird had been previously seen. Especially, when the sightings were in the same location repeatedly. I would find myself staring at the object of their fondest desire half a mile away from the spot where it had been consistently reported, in a stand of vegetation uncharacteristic of its normal habitat. I wouldn’t even know that it was “it.” I would just know it was something that I had not yet seen and I had seen a lot. So, I would chat with it for awhile, trying to persuade it to flutter back to its normal zone so that the others could discover it on their own. I begged it to spare me having to walk back and announce that I had found “it” yet again. I was unaware, though, that this was the hope of the birding community. They were counting on my aimless wanderings producing results and my pleas to the bird to go unheeded. They got a bit lazy, half-heartedly looking for their rarity, biding time until I brought them to the exact spot where the tweeter frolicked. I think they were more devastated by my divorce than was my ex-husband…

I am also loved/hated by my friends who fish. I don’t fish. I have no moral objection to fishing; I just find fishing boring and I abhor boredom. But, I have often found myself in situations where the “when in Rome” philosophy was appropriate. I have no pole and so would be loaned the most simple and pitiful of the available models. Ultimately, the loaners disintegrated in quality to pool cues with paper clips. This is because they realized the tool was irrelevant. No matter what the size, design or complexity of the pole, I caught fish. Not trash fish, either. Prize winners. Beautiful keepers. I would be the only one during the day to land fish that were above the legal size limit to take home. Meaning, I was the only one to be counted upon to provide dinner. And I didn’t try. Actually, I would try not to catch fish. I didn’t read the water for signs of schools or analyze the habitat for likely hot spots to drop my lure. I would just toss my line anywhere and let it do its thing. Its thing was to entice and hook a fat, glistening trout or flounder the size of a football-party pizza. I would put my line in areas where I was sure nothing existed. That would get me a redfish. I couldn’t win. Thousands of dollars of high-tech fishing gear wielded by experienced individuals would produce 3 withered, puny catfish for a day’s efforts. I could feed a family of 6 and their Aunt Agnes. My predatory genes in full action.

I rather feel sorry for my predatory genes. They get little use most days. Stalking and killing the wild soybean does not interest them much. They long for some technology that would transport me magically to the Paleolithic world, where they could be manifest full force. They long to be relied upon for survival. They wish me a Cavewoman. Some days, that doesn’t sound half bad…