Balance

Next to the washing machine in my basement hang my waders, dry as dust for nearly a month. And at the rate things are going, that probably won't change until next spring.

During August I got a couple evenings of local fishing in, besides my jaunt on the foggy lake, but nothing more. This is the first year in longer than I can remember I didn't take at least one trout fishing trip in August--often I have some of my best days then. The only fishing looming on the horizon is a trip with my dad the last weekend in September, where we'll try for some salmon around Manistee, probably pulling plugs behind his boat on Manistee Lake or the Big Manistee river. I'd love to be wading a stream on the closing day of trout season--Saturday. September 30--but I also want to fish with my dad while he still can, as he's six weeks shy of 80. Hunting season begins a week from today, but...(see sentence two, paragraph one).

Having said all this...I'm really not that unhappy about it. My interest in the outdoors hasn't flagged in the least, mind you, but for the time being I can accept my confinement. I have a lot on my plate, workwise and work-on-the-housewise, and some of that work is actually interesting. Wednesday was one of those days of teaching where everything seemed to work--I was poised and incisive in my presentation of the material, my students were engaged, and most of us left smiling. At times like that, I feel like I've truly found a calling. (Of course, yesterday I feared that someone was about to stick a giant cane through the door and yank me away from the lectern. You never get to coast.) While I don't find working on the porch enriching, I'm finding it less tedious, and I am proud of what we're accomplishing. We may not finish it this fall, but we'll complete enough so that I won't be ashamed if someone comes to visit. And what we have completed looks good.

I've wondered if I'm reaching a point where I can balance better my assorted obligations and compulsions. I know (and if you've followed this blog for any lenght of time, you know) that fishing and other outdoor passions sometimes have warped my connection to or participation in other things--work definitely, sometimes marriage, too frequently my spiritual practice (and believe it or not, for me fishing in itself isn't adequate as such a practice). People talk about fishing as a way of connecting with nature and finding one's place in the world, but my experience has often been that fishing serves to disconnect my from everything else. While fishing is not the center of my life, I feel sometimes it has obstructed me from finding, or keeping, a center.

In times past, this kind of temporary exile from the stream would have felt unbearable. It's perhaps a sign of growth that I can remain nonplussed about this one. More time on the water or in the grouse thickets would be good; outdoor time harmonized more with the rest of my life would be better. I wouldn't say the balance is there yet, but it feels distinctly possible.

Anyway, I found a couple of good blogs by people who actually do go fishing: Trout Underground and Musings of a Trout Bum. Check 'em out. I'll be spending some time at them until I get my boots wet again.

Tags: Fishing; Fly Fishing; Life; Blogs