Maybe Patience

This is why I love the Fall and what it means. When I was 8 years old my Father took me fishing for the first time. We went a ways up North Creek. I'd seen it before. It wasn't too far away from the hunting cabin that I'd haunted on occasion. Triple Oak Lodge. It was a little log cabin that had to have been close to 100 years old. In truth, it was 123. I digress.

Jennings creek was far more accessible but North Creek had the Big Fish, or so I was told. As such, that is where we went.

I remember my Father rigging my line with some odd contraption that involved a hook and some small egg things from a glass jar. They were bright orange. That much I recall.

He told me to cast upstream and wait for it to drift by. He said I would hook a lunker. I wasn't exactly sure what a "lunker" was but it sounded cool as shit.

I didn't hook said "lunker". But I did see that little orange ball swim by, often.

Still, I kept casting upstream because my Daddy (your Poppy) said that's what I should do. And if anyone knew what in the hell I was doing, it was my Father. Because I surely didn't.

At some point, and I can't recall the exact moment, I grew weary of the instruction. I began tossing the line out here and there. Willy Nilly (as I was later told). On one particular cast my little orange ball stopped floating by. It decided to hover around a rather obtuse rock. It kind of dangled, to be honest. Dangling in the current. It was a bit perplexing to an 8 year old.

But then I saw that maple leaf.

While I was worming around with my pole and furrowing my eyebrows, I caught a glimpse of a leaf that had finally let go. It was to my right, that much I recall. It wallowed in the breeze for a bit and then found it's new home on top of the water.

The stream, brook, or river, description completely dependent upon your interactions with running water... gladly accepted this leaf. Personally, I don't think it really cared. Secretly, I think it mattered above all things. I fight with myself about that memory often. Who was smarter? The leaf or the water? Immortal questions.

What I do know, though, is that the leaf in question nestled into the current and found its ride. I know that because I saw it do so. I was 8. But I saw it do so.

It followed the current until an obstacle arose (it's called a rock). It hit that obstacle. It stayed there. Far too long for an 8 year old's attention span, in my humble opinion, but it stayed.

Eventually, it let go. Eventually, it moved on. Eventually.

Now, common sense and logic would tell you that friction, pressure & resistance are what held that leaf there. That is probably true.

But to an 8 year old... maybe it was just Patience. That mystical entity I lacked. Maybe.

My little orange ball of bait didn't have that patience. To my knowledge it's probably still stuck. Shimmying in the current.

At least I hope it is.

Maybe I should go check. I've probably been patient enough. :)

(By the way... that isn't a stock photo. That's actually North Creek. Want to see it for yourselves? I'm game.)

Lost

 
When I first moved to your hometown, I was an alien.

I didn't know where I was, where I was going, or where I might end up. But I did know who I was and what I could do.

It used to piss your Mom off so much, but long before you two were born I would talk her into taking rides with me every Saturday morning. Long rides into wherever we ended up. Journeys.

She always told me I was insane. She was probably right.

We would get in the truck and follow asphalt. It really didn't matter where it led nor where it intended to lead us. We would find roads, lanes, valleys, highways, anything really. We would just drive.

I especially loved it in the Fall. With the windows down and the early morning sun snaking its way across the road, it always felt like goodness. Seeing people living their lives in their front yards. Getting stuck behind an old farmer on his tractor who waved at you when you sped up to pass him on a straight stretch. These were, are still, and will forever be... good things.

I've always done that. I still do. I always will.

I'll tell you a secret that most folks would never admit... sometimes you have to get lost to figure out where in the hell you actually are.

Always go and find where you're going. Never wait for where you're going to come and find where you are.

It helps to be lost, actually. So get there.

My Eyes

I spent a lot of time being afraid of what might come. Far too much time, honestly. I masked that fear with a saying that I stole from a film. "So Be It". I owned it, used it, abused it, and eventually believed it.

Thank God that I did.

I am not old enough nor experienced enough to tell you everything you'll ever need to know. I am not wise enough nor patient enough to give you the insight you'll need to get by. But I pretend I am and I pretend I am. I think that's what matters.

Those things you'll end up worrying about, do not really matter. Those things you'll lose sleep over, do not really exist. They're all mechanisms we use within our own minds to make our lives seem worthwhile. They're tactics we employ to convince ourselves that we have something to figure out, to solve, to overcome. As if those solutions might somehow give us meaning.

They're tricks that we play upon ourselves to fill up our empty cups, when we have no water to pour.

You have to see the World as it truly is. You have to see it as a dysfunctional machine that somehow functions.

Suspend your disbelief only long enough to understand that what you believe cannot be suspended. Who you are cannot be replicated. Who you'll be has not yet been written.

You can only change your world once you realize that no one else could ever dare change it in spite of you.

It is all about perception. That is what "So Be It" means, as it were.

It is all about what you see.

And I know what you see. You may have gotten your Mother's hair, her stature & even her disposition. You may have inherited her religion, her mannerisms & even her apathy.

I see a world full of quiet people, hopeful people, people waiting to to find an answer that has already been answered. I see a world full of people that have all of the tools and abilities it will take to save themselves and everyone they rub elbows with. I see a world so full of wonder and beauty that even blindness has to blink.

I see a world that is rich and waiting. I see a world that you see.

You do have my eyes, as it were.

So be it.