June 08, 2024 – A

Fishing was an escape
from a world I did not begin to comprehend.

Fishing allowed me to catch my breath,
to breathe easy,
without worrying about 
keeping up
or lagging behind,
or making someone happy,
or knowing what I was doing
or what I was going to be
when I grew up.

I could step out of that world
of stress beyond managing
and fish.

That made stepping back into
that world manageable
until it became too much,
then it was off to some lake
to restore my soul and breathe.

All of that was unconscious,
un-thought, unrecognized,
but it is as though it were scripted
into my late childhood to early adulthood years.

How does anyone do it without a get-away?
I cannot imagine.
I had to have something to balance
the madness of my life,
and it was fishing.

And then it was photography.
I remember well the transition point.
I was cleaning a fish for our family dinner,
and realized I had cleaned enough fish.
And that was that.

About that time--probably my junior year in college--
I was walking through the house
and a made-for-TV movie was playing
as I went into the room
with a 35mm camera on a poolside table,
and I fell in love with that camera on the spot.

I wish I had had a clearer understanding
of what was happening,
but it was like someone had pushed me into the pool,
and I had to figure out how to swim 
my way into knowing what the camera was about.

Guidance would have been helpful,
but my entire life lacked guidance.
No one in my life knew much more than I did.
So, I took what I could use
wherever I found it
and kept looking,
mostly in books written by people 
who knew more than the people I knew.
And I'm still doing that.
And am glad to be able to.

But fishing saved my life,
and bought me time.