Fishin' not Catchin'

Sometime in July, I and my sister were babysitting my nephew. He’s a cute little, freckled fellow. He was thrilled to see we had water in the ditch next to our house and wanted to go fishing. We did a preliminary fishing with some bread, but it kept floating off his hook.

                I told him that we would continue fishing after we ate lunch. 

Then we would dug up some worms in my garden for the fishe's lunch. Whilst I was rummaging for food, he asked my sister, Bess if she was going to go fishing with us.

Bess, hesitated, and said, “I don’t know I’ve got some work I have to do…”

My nephew, looked serious, and nodded like a wise man. Trying to understand why she might skip out on our grand adventure. “Oh yes, because building picture frames is very important.”  He said this so very matter of factly, and sincere, the statement coming from his lips was powerful.

 “Important?”

We spend most of our lives building important things to hang on other people’s walls.

Building other people picture frames is so very important. Yep.  

It struck us both. And made us giggle. Bess instantly decided that fishing was on the top of the list.

I have always loved noodles, so I cooked some noodles and took them out onto our trampoline, and there we sat, eating noodles right out of the pot with our fingers, like jungle people, sharing a meal in the sun.

                Then we dug worms out in the garden. Somehow that sounds weird, like we were still hungry. These were for the fish.

Digging night-crawlers was just an activity all on its own, as each clod had a variety of worms of all shapes and sizes for him to excavate.

When we made it to the ditch, we tossed in our line.

                 The funny thing was, I knew from the start we weren’t going to catch a fish. As I had spent hours doing this same thing as a kid, and mostly crawdads just float down the ditch. But it didn’t matter.

                As my nephew said, “If we catch a fish, we’re catching, not fishing. But if we don’t catch a fish, we’re fishing, not catching.”

                But oh how much fun he did have, fishing, and not catching.

                He had so much delight as the current took his line, and he made believed there was a monster fish on the end.

                He’d snag his line nearly every time, and the force in which he pulled would knock the worm off.

                And of course, it was because those darn fish were stealing it.

                And so we spent the day, fishing and not catching.

                Making believe that fish were gobbling up our worms. Making boats out of leaves, and letting them float on by, caught in whirlpools, watching the green of the trees reflected in the water.

After we had got our fill of fishing, we made a little fort by my bedroom, and fell asleep.

                Fishing, and not catchin.

                And mostly, we pretend that we are building important picture frames, and miss the water as it floats on by. Tomorrow the water might be gone.

                And life floats on by.

                And we build picture frames, and buy and sell objects that end up in junkyards faster that we can create them.

                And the foolish, nonsensical things, we end up missing, like the sun, and digging worms, and throwing out our line into the water, imagining some big fish will bite our bate. These are moments that go unlived.

                Reeling, in and reeling out.

                Fishing, and mostly catching the moments as they come, and releasing them back into the space where they came from.

                A bit of sun.

                A bit of a freckled smile.

                A pot of noodles.

                A nap.

                A hug.

                And a soft summer day, catching the essence of the meaning of life.

                You can’t hang such moments on walls, nor build frames around them.

                You can only snag them as they pass, like a white elephant gift, that stops in your hands.

                You can choose to unwrap it, or let it go, or let it go unopened. But whatever you choose, nothing, even the moment, can be held on for very long. The river of time is sure to keep things moving.  

                 Every one of us, no matter what we do or not do is “fishing, and not catching” as there are no “real” fish to get in this life. No trophy at the end of the line that we can fry up at eat that will satisfy.

No fish that is going to feed the five thousand every day of their lives. No picture frame we can build that is big enough to make us feel important, seen, and immortalized. Nothing we can procure that is not an illusion, no matter what we tell ourselves is at the end of the line.

                We are all fishing, everyone of us fishermen, and if we are lucky we catch the essence of life, the invisible, that can’t be held, earned, grasped, only experienced.

What is important?

This. Only you can decide.

               

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