“And when the broken hearted people…”
Dateline: The Farmington River
“Enjoy the little things in life because one day you’ll look back and realize they were the big things.”
— Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
It was the first time I was out of the house in weeks. I’m one of the “lucky” ones in that I can do my job from anywhere be it a newsroom, a hotel room, office.
Or the dinning room table.
I’d follow the tournaments on my laptop, take notes, makes some calls, write a story. Doesn’t matter that I’m in Connecticut and that the story is elsewhere. Been doing this gig long enough that I get it, pretty much second nature after almost four decades of listening and typing.
But one thing was missing, missing for me, missing maybe for you as well, one little thing that as the hours passed, as the stories passed, one little thing became one big thing.
I miss, life.
The little parts of it.
“…living in the world agree…”
“The best way out is always through.”
— Robert Frost
The simple things of life, like being alone in a New England meadow in fall, the feel of which is like walking through a Thomas Cole, Hudson River School painting.
The simple things, sky above, Earth below, the fact that everywhere we look out into space we see nothing like this.
There is real beauty in, normal.
It’s a feeling of safety, comfort, a sense of place.
I have never seen this barn in my life, but as I look at it, serene and mighty as it sits there through the decades a sense of peace comes over me.
There flies above me a large bird of some sort, blue sky and air cool and crisp as it is meant to be, peace, even though I watch out for snakes because I hate snakes.
I’m standing in a place where it looks like Earth has photoshopped itself.
I take a deep breath of normal.
“…there will be an answer…”
“Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in our heart.”
— Winnie The Pooh
If there is a cathedral to fly fishing in Connecticut, one of my best buds, Mac, is standing in it.
Mac is an orthopedic surgeon, former frontline doc in Afghanistan. He operated on injured service folks in what was once a goat barn. Most forward MASH unit, but he doesn’t say much about that.
“I need to go fishing,” was the call I got. “Need!”
I know him well enough to fill out his scorecard: Family, patients, fishing.
I know why he needs to go fishing, it’s the same reason I need to take photos of a meadow with possibly snakes in it. I say just this: “Pick you up at 3.”
“Thank you.”
Normally we go on fishing trips a week long or longer, lots of planning and figuring.
This one, six miles from his house, four from mine.
But it may be the fishing trip most needed.
The goal, catch normal.
That’s another bud out their in the cathedral. He too is on the front lines of the new, new.
His name is Bruce, and he runs a very nice kind of grocery store where the food is natural and the bakery items are warm. Two rows of craft root beer and soda, soup bar without any spills.
When told what Mac and I were planning on doing this day this is all he said, “I need to go too.” And so there he is.
“…let it be…”
“In the midst of winter, I found there was within me an invincible summer.”
— Albert Camus
That’s Sal, he lives within a few miles of the river, new to fly fishing. To be honest that’s all I know about him, I came around a small bend in the river and there he was.
“I try to get out here once a week or so,” he told me after I asked him if it would be OK to take his picture. Still possible to be polite in a pandemic.
He “friended” me on Facbook so I could get the photo of him, to you know, him.
“Do you fish?” he said mid cast to me.
“Sort of,” I said while looking through the lens, which is how I fish. “Why do you come out here?”
“Ah you know, you know,” he is watching his line float downstream. “This. You know.”
Through my lens I can see upstream from Sal both Bruce and Mac, they are also watching their line float on top of the water, the line just floats, no movement at the business end of it. I’ve seen what they have tied on and I know it matches the bugs I keep swatting at that are all around me.
All three in the water have matched the hatch.
None of them are catching fish.
And it doesn’t matter.
“…for though they may be parted there is…”
“My life is my message.”
— Mahatma Gandhi
Life doesn’t come with a free pass to happiness, the brass ring now comes with a disinfectant wipe.
We are “zooming” with our children this Thanksgiving.
Do I have the answer you may be looking for? Nope, I don’t.
But I may have the answer I was looking for.
It was the little things in life that I missed, it is the little things in life that make me who I am, and maybe it works out the same for you as well.
I can’t change the world, but I can change the part of it that touches me.
For three hours this day, I did change it. It just took a meadow, an old barn, some buds standing in a river and a camera placed up against my face.
Nothing world shaking, but for me.
A little thing in a big mess, a sniff of normal during the abnormal.
On this Thanksgiving, this is my hope, my wish for you, a little bit of happiness, a little whiff of normal.
Oh, by the way here’s a photo of two guys…
…neither one of whom caught a fish today.
They did catch, “normal” though.
db
“…still a chance that they will see there will be an answer.”
Let It Be
The Beatles
“Once you choose hope, anything’s possible.”
— Christopher Reeves