spread it with a rolling pin, and toss it around the room and cut it into shapes to be baked into future possibilities. 50 would be another stop to challenge my train of consciousness. Who knows, maybe I could give myself a life boost with what remained of my life energies. So I sat down with a fresh notebook and wrote what I wanted my year of 50 to be and where I was going. The list would not be etched in stone, but would be allowed to contort and change as lists can be more about completing tasks than experience. Think about the last major event you attended and how many people spent the entire time holding up a camera rather than being part of it. This is my attempt to stomp out that version of life and embrace a new starting line. To begin:
a. I will keep a year of 50 journal chronicling successes AND failures with cartoons and dates.
b. I will write my own on-line magazine (this!) about my experience with articles tracking some highlights.
c. I will create my own print screen design and screen my own t-shirts in my basement. I may possibly sell these down-the-line.
d. I will take guitar lessons until I can play three songs with competence and clarity. I will play each of these songs under the stars by a campfire on the beach. Simple stuff like Michael row your boat ashore doesn’t count, and they can’t be sing-alongs I can easily hide my playing behind. I’m looking for Can’t Explain by the Who, or some other recognizable rock tunes that will liven things up.
e. I will reproduce three Van Gogh paintings that look something like the originals.
f. I will get back in touch with my meditation practice and find the time to relax and enjoy being alive.
g. I will mentor a young man in my town in danger of dropping out of school and giving up on life. I will do my best to make this person go to college and enjoy reading books.
h. I will honestly catch a fish in the wild fly fishing.
i. I will hike several yet discovered paths in my local wilderness.
j. I will do one thing I never dreamed I would ever do.
Care to join me? Write me or visit my blog at www.realitycheck7.wordpress.com
After living in the Flathead Valley for six years, the year of 50 was finally when I got up the courage to string my fly pole, pack the car, and head north for a day of fishing along the North Fork of the Flathead River near Canada. I had taken all the classes, trampled down a practice spot in the front lawn, and even massed a colorful range of hibernating flies to dance on the end of my line. So this was it, do-or-die, the year I’d finally teach my flies to swim and see if my skills were adequate to land an allusive trout. A vision of a fly line sailing over my head like a lasso had filled my daydreams for years, where dolphin-sized rainbows eagerly waited just off shore for an epic battle of wills. This had fueled many a fly shop conversation, but still there was the fear: the fear that reality would not live up to the fantasy, and a sad day of sunburn and empty lines would send me back to guitar lessons and computer games over further humiliation.
I’d grown up with fishing, and cherish some of my earliest memories getting up before dawn with my dad to a breakfast of trout and
Peace for the First Time Fisherman
Rogers Lake was where I tried to get two for one by not only catching a fish with a fly I tied, but cating an Artic Grayling.
The second aspect of fly fishing is the part they never tell you about in the fly shops. It's all mental.