Thin
"I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean; like butter that has been scraped over too much bread....I need a change, or something. "
- Bilbo Baggins
For the last two weeks we have been besieged by uncertainty and anxiety-laced news. Yesterday I chose to avoid social media. The TV remained off as I made breakfast. I made quick work of loading the truck for an overdue excursion. I listened to Tom Rosenbauer's podcast on the 90 minute drive to the river.
Traffic was noticeably light. Graphite-gray clouds threatened more rain. Along my route I saw closed businesses and lines of early morning shoppers outside grocery stores.
Arriving at this location on the river on this day and hour, I should have had difficulty finding a parking place. But this is not a normal day. .
A spring cold front brought rain and dropped the temperatures down by almost 30 degrees. Just a few days ago shorts and flip flops were out of winter hibernation. This morning fleece was the uniform of the day.
I was fishing alone, from prudence and desire. The last time I fished the river not so long ago, the world was a different place. But the river took no notice. Ospreys still loudly objected to my intrusion. Fish still swam, and rose periodically to take a morsel from the surface film. I began to wade upstream to a favorite run that I had not visited this season. My sloshing startled a water snake which fled at my approach. Farther along I spied a beaver's slide, littered with sapling cuttings from the night before.
Gnarled cypress trees lined the bank; roots anchored in rocky soil against the constant push of the current. Rain began to fall softly and sporadically. Ahead a wild hen turkey flew across the river ahead of me, her skirts hoisted above the flow.
I reached my run, and was pleased to find it unoccupied. There were kindred spirits 50 yards upstream, too far away for conversation. Just as well. I did not come to talk.
Knotted carefully on the gossamer line were the fruits of my vise. The current felt reassuring as it urged me to join along on its journey to the sea. But no, my Tom Sawyer years are behind me now, and I am rooted like the cypress to this river bottom. So I cast quartering upstream. Follow the drift, watch the line. Pick up. Recast. Repeat.
A few times the drift is interrupted by a duped fish. The fights are acrobatic; the life force of the fish is telegraphed through the line, to the rod and to my to my arm with each head shake. The hook is quickly removed; the fish is never taken from the water. No pictures, not today. Briefly I feel the cold muscularity of the trout as it slides through my fingertips back to the river's depths.
Rain falls harder now. The timid or perhaps wiser souls have abandoned the river to me. I am dry and warm in my Gore-Tex cocoon. I stop to watch the river and listen. I feel the raindrops as they kamikaze against my hood, churning the surface of the river to a rolling boil. I catch a whiff of distant wood smoke. I am alone in the world for a time.
Now the light begins to wane, and I resign myself to the return drive home. While I dread navigating the road in a driving rain, I know there is warmth and light, and love waiting for me there.
My short adventure now over; my soul satiated and centered; I return to the Shire.
- Bilbo Baggins
For the last two weeks we have been besieged by uncertainty and anxiety-laced news. Yesterday I chose to avoid social media. The TV remained off as I made breakfast. I made quick work of loading the truck for an overdue excursion. I listened to Tom Rosenbauer's podcast on the 90 minute drive to the river.
Traffic was noticeably light. Graphite-gray clouds threatened more rain. Along my route I saw closed businesses and lines of early morning shoppers outside grocery stores.
Arriving at this location on the river on this day and hour, I should have had difficulty finding a parking place. But this is not a normal day. .
A spring cold front brought rain and dropped the temperatures down by almost 30 degrees. Just a few days ago shorts and flip flops were out of winter hibernation. This morning fleece was the uniform of the day.
I was fishing alone, from prudence and desire. The last time I fished the river not so long ago, the world was a different place. But the river took no notice. Ospreys still loudly objected to my intrusion. Fish still swam, and rose periodically to take a morsel from the surface film. I began to wade upstream to a favorite run that I had not visited this season. My sloshing startled a water snake which fled at my approach. Farther along I spied a beaver's slide, littered with sapling cuttings from the night before.
Gnarled cypress trees lined the bank; roots anchored in rocky soil against the constant push of the current. Rain began to fall softly and sporadically. Ahead a wild hen turkey flew across the river ahead of me, her skirts hoisted above the flow.
I reached my run, and was pleased to find it unoccupied. There were kindred spirits 50 yards upstream, too far away for conversation. Just as well. I did not come to talk.
Knotted carefully on the gossamer line were the fruits of my vise. The current felt reassuring as it urged me to join along on its journey to the sea. But no, my Tom Sawyer years are behind me now, and I am rooted like the cypress to this river bottom. So I cast quartering upstream. Follow the drift, watch the line. Pick up. Recast. Repeat.
A few times the drift is interrupted by a duped fish. The fights are acrobatic; the life force of the fish is telegraphed through the line, to the rod and to my to my arm with each head shake. The hook is quickly removed; the fish is never taken from the water. No pictures, not today. Briefly I feel the cold muscularity of the trout as it slides through my fingertips back to the river's depths.
Rain falls harder now. The timid or perhaps wiser souls have abandoned the river to me. I am dry and warm in my Gore-Tex cocoon. I stop to watch the river and listen. I feel the raindrops as they kamikaze against my hood, churning the surface of the river to a rolling boil. I catch a whiff of distant wood smoke. I am alone in the world for a time.
Now the light begins to wane, and I resign myself to the return drive home. While I dread navigating the road in a driving rain, I know there is warmth and light, and love waiting for me there.
My short adventure now over; my soul satiated and centered; I return to the Shire.
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Jim