The river takes no notice of me. It is indifferent to any purpose I may have for coming here. When an entire season is nothing but a deep breath for a river, how insignificant our lives then must seem. Instead, it goes about its unfaltering labour, mixing droplets of rain with melting ice in magical alchemy. Gathering these trickles into frantic streams and clear creeks. Rallying them to join with one another into rushing rivers, urging them ever onward in their gravitational destiny until each molecule has tumbled down from sky to land and back to the sea.
Water is the predominant element of our physical body. We thirst after it and are quenched by it. When it exists in the right amounts we give it no second thought, but when it does not – either by scarcity or in excess - we fight over it, curse it or drown in it. We sweat it out of our pores, spit at our enemies, cry tears and piss it into the bushes. How can we say we exist separately from it?
The river is water brought to life. We cannot hope to hear its whole story and never truly come to know this place. Our mortality, means the best we can do is listen to a few sentences. With humility we may find that in the presence of the river there are rewards. For some it is revelation. Salvation. Satisfaction. But these are all by products of our decision to step into it, and not reflecting any intent on the part of the teacher. For our part, we have nothing to teach the river.
Lest we think the river is ignorant to our trespass, it reminds us there are dire consequences for the foolhardy and unprepared. Taken for granted it can follow us into the dark, overtaking our confidence and leaving us broken.
We are likely the only living species that undertakes to tease another creature out of its home, bring it to hand on the flimsiest of threads and then release it purely for sport. I think about the ethics of fly fishing and mostly find a path to reconcile with them. But in my heart of hearts, I know it to be a selfish pleasure. One that I may someday be called upon to answer for. The trout are indifferent to these arguments and rationalizations.
The great irony of my life is that the more time I spend in the river, the more of it I need. All the while concluding that as deep as this bond may seem, it is only me hanging on and the affair is one-sided. The river doesn't know me. I talk to the river, and it murmurs back to me in some unfathomable language. But otherwise, I shall get no reply. Did I even pose a question I wonder as the day slips by? Walking back to the truck I do have a feeling something has been resolved. Perhaps it is just that I am refreshed having put down my problems for a few hours. The same struggle lies ahead, but I am different now.
Sometimes a trip to a river feels like a visit to a temple. Other days, more like an amusement park.
Fly Fishing is a pursuit that is both epic and minute, by which I mean it plays out under open skies often in a vast wilderness while at the same time concerned with a few feathers tied to a small hook at the end of a tippet the thickness of your hair. Name another madness that could transport otherwise normal people to remote places where they stand waist-deep in ice-cold rivers with a grin on their face.
I confess that I have fishing on the brain. Speeding down the highway, the road crosses a creek, and my reflex is to crank my head around and look for the rise. At that speed I find most water looks fishy. At what point did it shift from passion to therapy? Without noticing I had stopped talking about wanting to go fishing, to needing to get outside. Getting away became at least as important as where I was going.
Rarely does a fly drift perfectly through the whole run. There comes a time your line needs to be mended.