On not writing.

All of us learn to write in the second grade. Most of us go on to greater things.

Bobby Knight

I'm sitting here watching the little vertical line that marks the starting point blink. Telling me I'm ready to write. Hm.

A rising stream of disjointed thoughts flow through; have been flowing through my head. I try to make sense of them, thinking that within this twisted hydraulic there must be some thread of connectivity. And there very well may be although I know, owing to similar occasions in the past, that I will likely spend blessedly little time in attempting to sort them out.

Summers do that to me, a facet of my life that I'm not unfamiliar with. According to some, I spend way too much time fishing and way too little time absorbing whatever else is taking place in and around the rest of my life, which, in the long run, is really much more acceptable, especially now as my years pass. And, I know that when I do look back, the pages of my history will be bookmarked with the glories and frustrations that deal with fish, flies, and moving water rather than that which most everyone else would consider the really important stuff. I'll let them handle all that. They do a much better job at it than do I.

I used to wonder, back when I still had some misgivings about my emerging mindset, why it was that I was lacking the desire to channel more of my energies into the churning grist mill. That is, to me, the daily application of certain behaviors, routines, and practices that so many of us appreciate as daily life. And maybe I don't need to elaborate any further than that, as one could probably very easily discern from what I have just written that I certainly have a misguided approach to what it should mean to live and coexist on this planet Earth, although I still prefer 'careening mudball', and my thanks again to Thomas McGuane for permanently etching that image in my brain. It fits too well and will never be discarded.

I'd be lying if I said that I never give any thought to what is happening outside of my fishing life. Truth is that I, in weaker moments, expend a certain amount of energy doing something that time has so far failed to teach me, or has actually taught me it's just that I seem to have this very human habit of drifting into thoughts of people, usually loved ones, who are either in my life or who have gone, sometimes long gone. I periodically am caught trying to figure out what, if anything, is right or wrong with the current situation and why it is what it is.

And then another author pokes his literary head into my thoughts with, 'It is what it is...', and I smile, maybe brush back a tear or two, silently thank him for his undying wisdom, and grab for my fly rod.

I will never figure people out. Oh, I'll lapse now and again, and spend time trying to do just that. Even when I could be tying another soft hackle, or mending a leader, but it'll happen. I'll be lost in my world, in the hackle of a Caddis, the faces of those I hold close circling above and through me.

And I'm sure they wonder about me, but, there I go again, thinking I understand. Better sit down and tie another fly. Stick with the things I do understand.