At Long Last

5:30 am does not seem so early to me when there is a river, a mountain, or an ocean waiting for me somewhere.

Leila gives me days when I can escape into the places that give me sanity and release - a day making telemark turns in Tahoe or launching fly line over the icy current of a steelhead river - while she spends yet another day in solitary care of Milo.

During the work week, I leave the house before eight and return after five, spending at most three or four hours in my role as a father. More of each day and week is spent as the teacher of my twenty-four needy fourth and fifth graders. One day and sometimes a night each week I spend time trying to remember who I am, the person with a basement full of gardening equipment and tools, outdoor gear and guitar cases. The time I spend remembering who I am, the outdoorsman and the musician, the more I want of it, yet the further I am enticed to veer from my priorities.

The little man is it - his two-toothed grin constantly reminds me - even if I have convulsions of wanting something else. Life is always pulling me one way or another.

It was a cool morning as I pulled on my waders, the sun just coming up on the almond trees on the ridge above the Mokelumne. I pieced together my fly rod, pulled the line through the eyelets and tied on a favorite hand-tied pattern. I plodded down to the river that had never seen my line, so much possibility before me. I stripped out some line, made some casts into the current, snagged the hook on a log. I moved upriver to a constriction that ended at a boulder. I took short casts, watching the fly swing past likely lies. I pulled out progressively more line, eventually swinging the fly, a big wiggly leech, just past the boulder. A large silvery flash then a tightening of the line. A deep breath, a thank you.