Between the Lines
He said, “They are feeding on drowned yellow stone flies.”
I asked him, “How did you think that out?”…
“All there is to thinking,” he said, “is seeing something noticeable which makes you see something you weren’t noticing which makes you see something that isn’t even visible.”
I said to my brother, “Give me a cigarette and say what you mean.”
~ from A River Runs Through It
In a Freeflow Institute online writing workshop this week, as a prompt, I was posed the question: Are you open to messages from water, from animals, and from the ineffable? My immediate reaction, thankfully said only in my own head, was, “Hell yea! I get messages from water and fish all the time!”
And I do. The water tells me where to fish, and how; where to boat and where to stop the boat. The fish, whether I see them or not, tell me what they want to take, and what they won’t. The refusal I got from a McKenzie River redside trout several weekends ago told me to find a better imitation of a March Brown, which I did. The same trout also told me to wait a moment before setting the hook, which I did not.
In fact, I’m in constant conversation with waters and fish, when I’m fishing and when I’m not. I drive on a bridge over a river, get a quick glimpse at the water and immediately my mind considers whether or not I’d like to be fishing it right now or maybe tomorrow or maybe in a few weeks. If now, where on the river would I go, and how would I fish? Looking at the water, if it’s one I’ve fished before, I recall a past time or two or maybe many past times, and remember what happened: what flies worked, who I was with, what we had for lunch, where my partner hooked one, which river channel we took. Or maybe my mind wanders to the future and the next time I will, or hope to fish this water.
But this is, more or less, hearing, translating, and interpreting what’s directly in front of me; reading ‘the lines,’ perhaps. Reading ‘between the lines’ requires much more intent, time, and quiet than simply driving over or along water, or getting a glimpse of a fish as it turns away.
What’s between the lines is much deeper than a simple instruction to do something or go somewhere. What’s between the lines is a question that I didn’t think to ask, or an answer to a question that I didn’t yet know that I needed answered. Or maybe it is in fact an instruction and even more so — a clue of what to do, where to go, or what to look into. Sometimes it comes in real time and other times the message comes later, in the next pool, on the drive home, in bed that night, or much, much later still. It may or may not have anything to do with fishing, but it’s always valuable, worth remembering, and acting upon.
With practice, patience, and an open mind, I eventually receive what’s written and said between the lines. I respond, and the conversation resumes.
