I think fishing taught me patience. Probably both by example and experience. This morning (well the day two weeks ago that I originally started this post) I rose early and went fishing with Parker on the beach. There were a few others out, but all in all we had the beach to ourselves. The first cast out I caught a spot (photo above of this little fish). When I was little we would get up early on Sunday mornings and fish for these little critters. We'd catch a bunch of spot and croaker, scale and gut them and take them up to the cottage. My mom would fry them and make lacey corn bread. We'd eat them out on the porch with the cool ocean breeze blowing on us. Of course they had bloody marys with them which could really only make the whole experience even better. That memory gives me peace. Being on the water gives me peace. Peace/patience--I guess they are much the same for me. Time, being in the moment, the memories and feelings I want to capture and hold on to.
Anyway, we made some more casts. One especially forceful one threw off Parker's rig. I gave him my pole and began to re-rig his rod. Sitting in the sand, detangling line, tying knots, remembering the order--well there was no hurry just the patience of going step by step to get back to fishing. No hurry, no where to be but there.
We fished for a while longer. Only caught one more. So we let the little guy above go. I began to think of the steps involved in scaling and gutting and decided we'd save that experience for another day.
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