A season gone by

All those favorite river stretches are some 2,000 miles away from here – I had to take a peek at the river levels this evening – just to see.  The season closes there at the end of the month – barely two weeks away.  Oh my, they are all dropping into perfection tonight.  Ready to go for the weekend.  I don’t really feel regret for not being there – I’m here and right where I need to be.  It’s a strange feeling, though.  When I’m there, standing there – that straight piece away from the road flowing under the tall trees and through moss covered everything, none of this stuff really seems to matter.  It’s a selfish pursuit – forget about everything else, so I can indulge some quasi-cerebral, contemplative craving.  It’ll all be gone when I get back – no ceremony of endings, no last casts, none of that.  Maybe this should be some long reverie on the times now passed, but it’s just not there.

I know that much of the satisfaction lies in the anticipation, the dreaming, fantasizing and such.  August is not far away and after last year, there is hope now for even starting in July.  Really, there is no ending to this crazy addiction.

By Sunday the water will be silky, emerald green – the kind of water that whispers by you.  If the forecast light rain pans out, it will be a dreamy week to be on the water – fish or none.  So now I get to package it all up in the volumes of memories, sketch out the new notes of anticipation and turn to other things.  I get to travel over the hill for a week when I return and I know that Spring will be FULL over there with bugs on the big water and morels in the now verdant woods.  Three weeks is a long time to be gone at such a critical juncture in the season – but I know, too well, that I will be able to return to the same places.  And I get to stop along the way and ask myself “What is this time thing, anyway?”