The river that flowed out of the high mountains tumbled through rocks that dated from the beginning of time. It passed among trees whose seasons had watched the hillsides change, past rhododendron clumps that helped the scant topsoil hold on. It plunged through pools inviting to trout, around bends that beckoned to standing waves, over free falls misting ferns the dinosaurs knew. It passed a small family once, all four of whom are now many leagues downstream.
What we bring to nature and what we take away are different, a melancholy joy of times that won’t stop passing, and were never meant to.
One morning some years ago, on the porch of a small cabin, I sat next to a fly rod whose tapered leader had been snapped off and re-tied a score of times. Now, four feet or so separated a small, yellow popper from a green floating line. The leader rested with a handsome wind knot halfway along its length, the floating line a snarl snubbed to the rod’s smallest guide. The day before it had done battle with an overhanging water oak and mostly fought it to a draw.
Smiling, I knew, when its user next stirred, I’d sort it out again and turn him loose. When it comes to fly casting, strength forms alliance with subtlety in its own time.
Some rigs are built to be fought through anything. Others require a much lighter touch. Deciding which is needed depends upon the situation of course, but there’s nothing like a 5-weight fly rod and an open book of options to show a stubborn little fisherman the way.
The rod and the flies teach us, and their greatest skill is letting us think we’ve figured it out on our own.
It’s a way that expresses itself gently but firmly, and continuously. It’s an art that can be advanced but never mastered, like the rivers that can be turned or throttled but never really contained.
It’s a lesson heard most clearly along streams that have forgotten the touch of man, in high outcroppings well away from handy trails. It’s heard along small rivers where the perfumed scent of clean air and oxygen-rich water overhangs the banks and rides the breeze beyond.
Our rivers flow through turnings, some predictable, some unforeseen, but always under gravity’s guiding hand, rolling downward to the sea. They race between pools that mimic pausing, but their progress does not stop, or even slow. The straight runs are soon forgotten in water stacked at each obstacle’s edge. They fold back upon themselves and pile high, then tumble in froth through sharp carvings before hurrying on. In places they spread wide over shallows. In others they run silent in deep channels. But always they move and go.
It’s a blessing to spend time along these streams with our own children, because nowhere may be found an analogy more apt. We are blessed with two, and life itself is an ever-twisting stream.
Walking alongside the moving water, one child kept to the path, one had to be called back from every obstacle. The one who never stepped from the path has a mind so nimble and young I’d be envious if I weren’t so proud. She balances her own instincts with what her elders say, and she finds her own way open and free. She turns over moments in her mind without ceasing, loses days into years each passing week.
She holds herself to high standards of her own creation and drives a creative spirit with a thoughtful zeal that marks the power of combined DNA. Her spirit is dauntless, her personality, unique.
The child for whom the path is mere suggestion is not wayward, no more than the other is mundane, but merely quite different, as life differs itself. His exuberance flows out in thoughts that form in clouds of words spoken, sorted, if at all, on the go. For him, life is to be lived out loud — talk being more process than pronouncement.
It’s a process with whose workings I’m not familiar, but it’s a process that works for him, one he’ll continue to hone with a spirit that’s never uncheerful.
We rounded a high bend and a promised waterfall hove into view. We stopped for photos over much protest, and I smiled. Someday they’ll be glad we did. I, of course, already am.
Kevin Tate is a freelance writer. Email [email protected].
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