I’m sitting next to my ever-growing pile of Kleenex and empty Nyquil bottles (which may have contributed to this wandering essay), wondering who clubbed my former life and buried it in a shallow grave in a remote part of the national forest.

Enough. Really.

And by “former” life I mean the one where I wasn’t infected with some horrible little virus every other day or so.

All of which amounts to a long-winded writer’s way of saying this week has been grim and last night was even grimmer, though today is sunny and I’m pulling myself upwards instead of sliding back down into that shallow grave.

Still, my Yugo-class immune system has deservedly earned Bush-level approval ratings, and things have gotten to the point that my clients are wondering why shit isn’t getting done.

Right outside my window, winter refuses to give up the ghost (snow finally melting, but still a good foot in parts of the yard), and even the normally anti-whiner Chris Raine is issuing threats to the weather (are you listening, weather?).

Meanwhile, Mount Shasta has become news media central with a 30-40 car pileup on the I5, a climber dying on the summit of Mt. Shasta, Tom Stienstra’s arrest and some weird shit in Dunsmuir pushing us square into the center of California’s marijuana legalization wars (not to mention a lot of bad jokes).

In short, the fecal matter is hitting the rotating blades (and hard), and when that happens, the reporters dive for their phone lists, the politicians dive for cover, and the fly fishermen should probably go fishing.

At least the smart, healthy ones.

The Schedule Says Here You’re Fucked.

Sadly, at TU, that isn’t the simple enterprise it has been. I find myself searching through a schedule that used to feature a lot more empty slots, hoping to stumble on a few fishing-trip sized openings.

Obviously, getting sick tends to plug those holes (it also shifts paying work into the remaining open slots), and there’s the little matter of life itself intruding.

A little over a week ago, I had a whole afternoon cleared for a trip, but ended up digging deep into the cool earth, burying a cat who’s been steadfastly my friend the last 20 years, and only a real asshole rushes a job like that to go fishing.

There are as many different reasons to go fly fishing as there are fly fishermen, and I suspect those reasons vary enormously on a day-to-day basis. Still, universal concepts surface, like a desire to play in nature (the rules are nice and clear), the willingness to engage in an ancient food-gathering practice, and a very real need to escape from the civilization we’ve inexplicably constructed and even-more-inexplicably submerged ourselves in.

Getaway? Or Takeaway?

I’ve suggested that life recedes when I fly fish, and sometimes that’s even true, though a little emotional meltdown I suffered a couple years ago on the Upper Sac suggests we take our messes with us to the river.

From most angles, water reflects, so it stands to reason if you show up at the river feeling harried and pissed off, then that’s what you’ll get back, though I won’t discount the calming properties of moving water.

All we can really hope is that the river papers over the worst of it, or – in a best-case scenario – illustrates the size of the problem, which is usually a lot smaller than we believe it to be.

After all, I’m sick and frustrated, but I’m also not suffering from any number of really bad things that afflict good people on a daily basis, and then there’s Little M, who – despite the time-consuming need to feed, clothe and entertain her – delivers the best 15 seconds of my day when sees me walk into the room, drops what she’s doing, and runs right at me.

She’s into kissing everything in sight right now, and though I know she just finished kissing a zebra in the picture book she dropped, it’s clear from the big one she just planted on my cheek that she knows I’m not the abject, virus-ridden, empty shell of a man I feel I am, and there’s hope, and there’s faith, and yes, there’s tomorrow.

Some guys have all the luck.

See you in the Nyquil aisle, Tom Chandler

[ad#OpenX-468 Horizontal]

Posted in Opinion, Writing and tagged , .