Going Fishing

I don't know what was wrong with me today. I generally leap (yes, leap) from bed in the morning full of vim and vigor. I am going a million miles of hour by the time I get to the office. I am energy personified most days. It's just my nature.

Today, I was dragging ass. I crawled from bed. My eyes were blurry and my brain felt like a great lump of fat residing within my cranium. I had such a hard time even compiling a sentence. I was not myself.

I slogged through the work day but I was hardly at the top of my game. I felt useless in the four conference calls I participated in. I could barely counsel one of my publishers who raised a theoretical problem for me to resolve. I couldn't even engage when The Man in Plaid attempted to goad me in our daily political debate. He shook his head. "You need a good nights sleep, but I know you'll be back." I was glad he had faith in me.

When the day came to a close I made the rounds to my regulars to bid them good night. When I wished The Fisherman a good night he said to me, "You need a day off. Let's go fishing."

Bless him, I do need a day to go fishing. I know someone, a PETA devotee or someone comparable, will shame me for my enjoyment of fishing. I am a practitioner of the catch and release method. I like the feeling of being aloft in open seas. I like the smelliness of cutting fresh bait and the ballet-like movement of casting a long and relentless line. There's something poetic and bucolic about fishing. There is a zen like quality to sitting and watching for those slight indicators on your line that something is responding to your efforts. The concept is completely contrary to my belief system yet I GET the brilliant leisure that fishing conveys. And dammit, I enjoy it.

As a child, we would take family road trips to Morro Bay, California. We would fish off the pier and drop traps for crab. My Dad made us bait our own hooks and we learned to watch for fish as they swirled around our bait. We learned to clean the catch that we would eat and we learned to gently retract a hook and release fish back into the sea. I respect the sea and feel a bond to it that is incredibly powerful.

I want to go fishing.

The Fisherman snapped me out of my nostalgic daydream. He announced, "The season is growing short. Let's take a half day on a Friday and go to the Sound and do some fishing. The blackfish are teeming. You need to go fishing."

I agree. I'm ready to go anytime.