Also, because I thought I'd work on it through Isaac's iPad, I wonder if that wasn't the source of my torture - as it has proven to be so many times before. Slow, unresponsive, incompatible with seemingly endless applications and websites, the iPad doesn't do well with Blogger. It may very well be that it accidentally blanked out the post when I tried - in vain - to access it with the device.
Anyway, when you love fishing
as much as so many of us do, all that time on the water lends itself to
thought. And being individuals, our thoughts meander, like the rivers we so
often stalk, through the same course, more often than not, and they only change after some cataclysmic
event. We come to the same conclusions and re-enforce them with our experience,
until the day when something big happens – or a conglomeration of small things
– and we change our minds. But this is rare – as rare as changing something as
insignificant as one’s blog venue. 
However, something significant will do the trick, such as when you have children and one of them, like my
son, is born with Fragile X. This is the equivalent of an earthquake, or of the
foundering of a great cliff or, better yet, the opening up of a great chasm
that sucks the river up and leaves the downstream riverbed dry. Things that
you used to take for granted just don’t apply anymore; and things you might
have hoped to expect will now never come to pass.
I can go into a long discourse,
with examples, of all the challenges that exist in a life like this – or I can
tell you simply that I have a 6 month old baby of 6 years. Speech is not yet a
reality, independence is unrealistic, and there is a hefty diaper bill (and
load) at the end of every week. This is not a complaint. My baby is very
charming and usually quite a lot of fun; but he creates a reality that few
other parents – and maybe none who read this – can truly understand. And
unfortunately for this fisherman, part of that reality translates into watching
fishing opportunities from afar, reading other people’s blogs and emails,
watching TV shows…
But I do still get to go. It
would be foolish, in my opinion, to give up on all the things that bring you
joy, for any reason – especially the things that constitute a main tenet in
your life. From the river that slipped into the crevice, there is still water
and it can still flow somewhere. With luck, that somewhere leads to fish; and
sometimes I do get lucky. Sometimes I end up on a real river somewhere, with a
real rod in my hands, and I sound the seams and depths for my scintillating and
favourite quarry, the charming and beguiling rainbow trout.
would be foolish, in my opinion, to give up on all the things that bring you
joy, for any reason – especially the things that constitute a main tenet in
your life. From the river that slipped into the crevice, there is still water
and it can still flow somewhere. With luck, that somewhere leads to fish; and
sometimes I do get lucky. Sometimes I end up on a real river somewhere, with a
real rod in my hands, and I sound the seams and depths for my scintillating and
favourite quarry, the charming and beguiling rainbow trout.
I do it with friends or
acquaintances, alone with strangers or by myself. Sometimes I watch as others
catch fish, and sometimes they watch me. I may stop fishing a while and look
around, at the world as it moves on regardless, sun rising, sun setting;
watching the surface of the moving, breathing stream and the foamy wisps of
confidence that shred themselves apart in its turmoil. How the questions can
rise Will I catch any fish today? Am I doing something wrong? Should I fish
here or further down? Am I fishing deep enough? Is this the wrong colour? Is
this the wrong day? Has my skill wholly left me?
Exacerbated by the rarity of
the occasion, my fishing is always caught in the same grand ebb and flow,
meandering and twisting through winters and springs of confidence; anxiety
rises and falls, and the questions come and go. New things come up sometimes by
accident; and then sometimes because I acted on a hunch they happen as I wanted
them to, as I’d hoped they would, and they re-ignite me and quell the doubts
for a while. There is no better feeling, especially after a dull morning, than
to happen upon a section of stream, full of hungry “chromers” who are only too
willing to take on the challenge of my offerings. And then there are good
questions: “how long will this last?” “Is today THE day?”
And always in the back of the
mind, how are things at home? I hope Isaac isn’t driving anybody crazy. Fat
chance!
But it is only recently that I’ve
come to the full cognisance of the fact that the insecurity of the angler doesn’t
belong only to me. Just as success itself is shared and passed around like a
bottle of wine, failure and the insecurity it brings almost inevitably follows –
like a morning in the doldrums.
I don’t know how I came to this
realisation, because I don’t remember a single event that could account for it.
Rather, I think a conglomeration of smaller events took place that helped turn
on the light. I finally listened enough to fellow anglers, watched them succeed
and fail – and the effect this has on them – and then compared to my own
successes and failures (trips to the Salmon river, where I can still dream of
catching a steelhead vs. odd-chance exploratory visits to nearby rivers that
produce surprisingly well). And I can see, now, that we are all as enthralled by the mystery of the fish, we all fear fishlessness in the same fashion. That little red dot at the crest of every float
holds so much promise. When, at the urging of a fish, it vanishes beneath the
surface – great glory ensues. When it meanders aimlessly over the surface for
hours and hours – “drifting, drifting, endlessly drifting” – it’s like watching
your own heart slowly crystallising in a freezer.
on the light. I finally listened enough to fellow anglers, watched them succeed
and fail – and the effect this has on them – and then compared to my own
successes and failures (trips to the Salmon river, where I can still dream of
catching a steelhead vs. odd-chance exploratory visits to nearby rivers that
produce surprisingly well). And I can see, now, that we are all as enthralled by the mystery of the fish, we all fear fishlessness in the same fashion. That little red dot at the crest of every float
holds so much promise. When, at the urging of a fish, it vanishes beneath the
surface – great glory ensues. When it meanders aimlessly over the surface for
hours and hours – “drifting, drifting, endlessly drifting” – it’s like watching
your own heart slowly crystallising in a freezer. 
That little phrase – “…endlessly
drifting,” is something that Mike said to me once when we fished the
Cattaraugus together, long before I picked up a centrepin reel or even a decent
float rod. At first and for many years thereafter, my insecurity took it as “aimlessly”
drifting and a comment about my skill (or lack thereof). I was a little bit
irked, but went along with what he obviously thought was funny. Now, years
later, I know my obloquy was quite out of place as Mike’s words were just the
mirthful bubblings of a happy subconscious, at work on what it knows best. I've now gone so far the other way as to acknowledge that, if he had really said "aimlessly," then it wouldn't have been totally uncalled for.
And it was Mike who introduced
me to the line of thinking that many who claim that a day fishing is better
than a day at work – or who go by the old saying that the gods do not deduct
from a man’s allotment those hours spent fishing – are merely trying to squeeze even an ounce of silver lining out of an empty day. His quixotic belief in this has relaxed
over the years, even as I’ve witness his skill and – shall I say it? – “supremacy”
on the rivers wax and flourish. He emails and calls out of the blue, to see if
I will go with him because in truth a day spent fishing successfully does take
a back seat to something, which is a day spent fishing successfully - with a
friend.
All of which has now become my
refrain, especially if you look at the posts I’ve written over the past year –
another proof that the epiphany didn’t take place in a moment but was sculpted
by many events, not the least of which was fishing with my son, Samuel and a
recent winter’s trip to Pulaski with my friend Oliver. I caught nada on both occasions, but I wasn’t
overly disappointed in either case. Both times, I was fishing with someone for whom I have high regard; spending time with them, seeing how they worked out the day, and what it is that makes them tick. Although my object was not achieved, both days were fishlessly successful, and I not only knew it but could feel it.
Worry about catching fish?
Such minute
fretting is nothing compared to the genuine anguish I sometimes feel about
Samuel’s twin’s future. Poor Isaac!
Poor Isaac! Everything is
golden now, and lovely statements from friends, family and acquaintances alike –
that he is lucky to have such good parents – deck his path through life. It all works today. But
the fingers that animate this space will not always be here to do so. What
then? Nobody knows.
All the better reason, then, to
make my periodic pilgrimages to the swift shores of the rivers that will give me
trout. Lining my own life with worry will not benefit anyone, and – here’s a
good and realistic hope – he will grow to be ready to come with me, and there is still a chance that he will be my best fishing buddy someday. But until then, there’s
no excuse for letting myself go soft and losing touch with the beating heart of
one of my most compelling passions. Continue, I must, to keep it all in
balance; never lean too much on Laura, but always keep the equipment ready.
Because you never know when the next chance will come, and –
Oh when the float slips under
the surface, and the returning hook hits true – what a moment! Joy!
Well worth the
wait, the worry, the work!
