sentiments.

I have been writing of sorts, but without a story. I supposed I haven’t even been outside much this summer due to disaster. The gulf oil spill ruined good plans for salt-water fishing, and the flood in Nashville ruined the good fishing here until recently, and I haven’t been out much since it has returned. I haven’t written anything because I feel like there is nothing to say. Vegetables are beautiful this year, especially the Tomatoes. I feel as though they are little miracles, and the longer we wait on that deep red, the more satisfying they are. I don’t have that romantic sense about gardening like the other natural pursuits, but nonetheless I am still impressed.

Nostalgia can be a battle, especially when accompanied by a sense of being uprooted and ungrounded. I heard this ass on NPR equating a sense of nostalgia to dissatisfaction with the present. I’m not saying that he’s wrong, but perhaps just heartless and incapable of compassion. I think he’s operating on some faulty assumptions about progress, and also think that he had a shitty childhood, or maybe he was born a thirty three year old. I mostly just dislike him.

I grew up in Michigan, and ever since I left have always been drawn back. My family still has a place on a lake there, and I feel as though I’ve discovered it again.  It’s a place that I always have held close, even when I lived right there. I think that I like it so much because my mother does, and I feel like it is the way in which I most understand and know her. She has so many memories of her mother there, and times with her brother and father, and with my dad. It’s such a large part of her identity. I have my own memories and regrets tied to that water, and its something that I have had to come to grips with over the years of being away. 

And therein lies the truth about nostalgia. It’s a living and breathing part of your identity, not some bullshit nod to the way you think the world use to be (or even how great you think it is now). The lady’s family has the same connection to their piece of land in Holmes County, Mississippi. Its fun to watch because I know how they feel, how much they want to protect it because it is such an important way to tangibly understand what they share as a family.

But what I have learned most about the sentimental is that it can develop into something new. It is dynamic. I have been having so much fun researching how to duck hunt our lake and the adjoining river system this summer, because I love to hunt and because our house is in a flyway and because we have never done it. My relationship to that place is about to change, especially if it works. I suppose it means that I will have a different, more developed relationship with the place and with the collective identity of our experiences there. It feels like that part of my history is bending the rules a little bit to accommodate me. Which, quite frankly, rules. The river that leads into the lake is also a killer steelhead fishery, and there is a native brook trout stream about a half-mile down the road. These are all added bonuses that I never even knew I cared about until I began to appreciate the harvest.

So, the point is that nostalgia and sentimentality are important, especially if it is such a large part of your identity, and its also pretty neat to see those things change and develop with you.

Happy Hunting.

r. 

february.

I have since moved back to Tennessee and have switched focus from whitetails to the beginnings of the growing season, turkeys, and the rod and reel. For turkeys, the goal is simple. I have never taken a bird and am committed to success this March and April. This is all dependent on the strength of my interest in a month, but that is the idea for now.

 A more concrete and immediate affair of interest is the beginning of the spring growing season. One of my goals is to increase my personal involvement with The Lady’s garden, of which I am already down a few points for missing the seed-buying trip. She knows more than me anyhow, so it will probably work out better that way.  The CSA begins in May also, but the signups are now and that at the very least stokes some anticipation. The snow-dustings and soft morning frosts still remind me that it is February, but afternoons feel like they are stretching and waking up for spring.

The fun part is the full freezer in conjunction with the garden. Sam and I went back to the cooler the week after the season closed and spent a good three hours slicing and gathering venison to be processed. The results are firmly packed away Tetris style in three freezers.  Taylor gets to eat all he can until I come get what I need. Hell of a deal for the both of us.

Bought some new fly gear. New rod and reel, we’ll see if I need money or gear in the coming months.  I’m leaning toward keeping it.  Logic says that I’ll get to make money for the rest of my life, and there is a finite amount of fly rods in the world. It would be a shame to let any of them slip out of my grasp. There is a little part in every fly-man that truly believes that whoever dies with the most rods wins.  I can’t help it.

February is usually the doldrums for the hunter/gatherer. Clay got a new bird dog, and hopefully he gets to hunt over him in the final two weeks of quail season in Alabama. Its a beautiful dog with a strong name. I think that most have a certain affinity for hunting dogs. Strange how the relationship changes a bit when utility is added to the equation, but I can't help but look forward to August and doves thinking about how I don't have to run after those damn birds any more. There is nothing more ridiculous that an grown man hurdling sage and stick with shotgun pointed straight in the air in search of downed fowl.  I'm a lanky six foot three and am quite worthless in this capacity, but I will retrieve to hand and I don't eat my own turds. Its all about perspective I suppose. 

In the meantime, I think I'll write some, learn to tie some new fly patterns, and enjoy tobacco that actually tastes like tobacco. Cheap beer, venison steaks, cold hands, and not being stressed about not being in the woods. It isn't all poetic, but I thought this picture was great, even though it is plain. I have some friends who are incredible photographers, and I would love to make some trips with them and hopefully show off some of their work.  Thinking about learning more about bird watching, would love to know where to start. That’s your queue, many thanks. 

Happy Hunting.

r.