Not quite as hot today, but still above average, so not much going down on the Chippewa River, or in the river. Nobody I've talked to is having any better luck, so I don't feel too singled out for failure.
I played softball yesterday at a company picnic, four innings in 95 degree heat. We had a blast, but the game left each and every one of us - ages ranging from 17 to 40 - in pretty rough shape physically. I was really feeling it, and something happened this morning that hasn't happened since I was four: I had to sit on the living room floor to put my pants on.
There's an upside to these kinds of days, of course, a chance to lounge satisfactorily. It's a pleasant kind of soreness, never really painful, and I spent most of this afternoon crashed out on the couch beneath a sheer curtain billowing in a late summer breeze. I watched half of a Brewers game, an episode of King of Queens, a cooking show about the origin of BBQ that spawned all sorts of homemade sauce ideas.
Not a bad way to spend a day off.
But when it came time to get out of the house and fish I was faced with a challenge. The spot where I've spent the last month hunting Big Missy is in a river bottom. There's a deep stairway/rough trail combo leading down to the water that is normally no problem, but turned-to-stone as I was from yesterday's two hours of swinging, running, sliding and throwing (and one wholly embarrassing moment when for no reason whatsoever I tripped and went ass-over-tea-kettle while running to first base) has left me looking a lot like Frankenstein navigating down these stairs, and dreading the climb back up.
It's also left me in a dark mood, which is unusual and very unwelcome. Normally, fishing is a reliable panacea for dark moods, a chance to not think about anything, good, bad or indifferent. I get very in the moment, and all the trials and tribulations, responsibilities and obligations - all the crap - fades away. That's a big part of the allure of fishing.
But today, as I cast out (with a 'Daredevil' knock-off - same red and white color, without the face logo and extra price; spoons have been the hot lure lately...), I've started imagining myself as an old man, imagining a time in the future when moving slowly and struggling to get up and down stairs is not the result of over-doing it on the diamond, but part of everyday life.
I'm not afraid of looking old; I've never been all that great to look at. I'm not afraid of losing my hair or turning gray; both processes have already started in some measure. I've accepted middle age, come to terms with the concept of not being the youngest or most vital anymore. You're a fool to fight it, and there really is something to be said for thinking young, keeping dreams alive, and so forth. And I do, as much as possible. I work out regularly and try mightily to eat better than I once did. I quit smoking, not really a big drinker anymore, other than a deep green smoothie most mornings followed by a multi-vitamin. In this way, I hope to dodge things like obesity, heart disease and diabetes. I want to fight the process of aging.
But I can't reverse it, or stop it...I can only, at best, delay it, and I am afraid of the physical limitations that await me, the inevitability that the dim light of elderliness, of pain and struggle in even the simplest physical maneuvers, will one day be all that's left to illuminate my day-to-day life. As it pertains to this particular blog, I dread the thought of no longer being able to go fishing. To speak nothing of other physical pursuits, I cringe at the thought of simply not being able to 'make it' down a hill, or up a flight of stairs, or on and off a boat easily, or being unable simply to stand for long periods.
That's right, I stand when I fish. A lot of people bring chairs down to the river with them, their coolers, their lunches...they make the riverbank their living room, at the very least find a nice flat rock to plant themselves on, kick back, enjoy the view, toss out a minnow and a slip bobber and wait for something to happen. There's nothing wrong with that, I just choose differently. I stay on my feet, upright and alert, for the two to four hours I customarily stay out. I use artificial bait that requires retrieval, and cast out and reel in, cast out and reel in the entire time. I hate the thought that one day it might not be my choice to make.
And it will happen, no matter what I do. George HW Bush went skydiving at age 80, and it was a big deal. He did again in 2009, at 85, and it was like, wow, way to go....
"Just because you're an old guy," the ex-president said of his 2009 jump, "doesn't mean you have to sit around drooling in the corner. Get out and do something. Get out and enjoy life."
That's pretty fantastic. A clarion call to everyone. But he's no longer the young man he was at 80 or 85. His 90th birthday jump is in question because age has caught up with him.
And it will catch up to me. I might be frigging Charles Atlas from here on out, eat all the right things, run marathons and climb mountains, and it will still get me. Eventually, someday, someone's going to be able to kick sand in my face at the beach, and my only response to that is, hopefully they won't.
For some reason, I've had trouble wrapping my head around that, much less accepting it; days like today just serve as a reminder that it's out there. Maybe not imminent, but out there, waiting, with the patience of Job.
Luckily, tonight's rumination gets interrupted...not by 'fish on', unfortunately, but two bees. One is some kind of spiny-looking wasp with an abdomen shaped like blown glass, the other a yellow hornet. Out of nowhere they start swirling around my head in a tight, circular trajectory. It's not me they are interested in, or after, I realize after a moment of panic, but each other. They're engaged in some kind of fearsome warfare, and just happened to have chosen my head to chase each other around, like a tree in the park.
They don't let up, if anything they pick up speed and tighten their circle, and their close proximity results in a loud, raucous buzzing in both ears. Mild brushing of my hand in front of my face doesn't deter them, only gets them aware of me as something in their way, which seems to bolster their fight, which in turns leads to my having to bob my head back and forth like an owl to try removing myself from the situation.
Finally the wasp makes its move; in a seeming attempt to catch up to the hornet, it flies right into my face. I drop my rod and start swatting spastically, cursing angrily, gesticulating like an epileptic bullfighter to rid myself of these two intruders. In the process, I lose my balance and plunge one foot into the Chippewa River and come dangerously close to going in completely. Thankfully, the insects disappear into the nearby thicket before this happens, before I'm inadvertently stung, and before reinforcements show up to join the battle.
I look up and down the riverbank sheepishly, and realize I've caught the attention of a fisherman upstream about twenty yards. He's too far away to have seen exactly what's gone on, knows only that I had some kind of spastic meltdown and am now standing with one foot in the water. But he makes it clear that he knows.
"Bees are a bitch tonight, ain't they?" he says.
The laughter in his voice as I shake my foot out of the water and retrieve my rod from the rocks goes a long way toward reminding me that life is no more about the future than it is the past. It's all about, it's only about, the moment at hand.
Just the moment at hand.
With any luck I will never be too old to swat away bees, and more importantly, laugh at myself trying to do so.
As time goes on, if I can just keep a sense of humor...
That's the panacea.
