January is for daydreaming

January is for daydreaming.

Looking out the window, the sunshine makes it look like a bluebird day, but it's not.  The high might reach freezing.  As a sportsman, that's hard for me to handle, because that image awakens a primitive man inside who thinks in caveman monologue: "Warm outside.  Must fish."

That's when depression sets in.  To combat this depression, I daydream about the past year's excursions.  I daydream about that trailer home-sized boulder sitting in the middle of the Conejos River that I fished around in Colorado this past summer.  Seeing a mountain rock slide at what looked like a small distance down the canyon, I set out on a sloggy trek across the meadow that found me at my destination only after my calves and thighs told me that I was past the point of no return.  In case you're wondering, I did make it back, but not before a lightning storm forced me to a little creek up in the tree line where I found an overhanging cliff and huddled for protection and warmth.

But in the forty-five minutes before that, I caught fish.  Lots of fish.  And quantity didn't even matter because of the quality of the moment.  I was fishing around this big, beautiful boulder, watching the befuddled rainbow trout swim to my nymph imitation eight feet down through gin-clear water.  Subsurface sight fishing to truly wild fish in a place that had no footprints leading up to it.  At least no human foot prints.

It was an opportunity I had to take because the lake level had dropped in the drought, and under normal conditions, I would have been standing twenty-five feet under water.  My only regret was that I had no fishing buddies with which to share the moment.  They were all back where I started, making their own memories.

This coming summer I might get bored from fishing too much.  In that moment, I hope I happen back on this blog entry and find some perspective, because summer is for fishing.

Post Christmas Blues

I heard last Monday on the morning news that that day was the most depressing of the year.  Kids going back to school coupled with the holidays being over apparently creates a grey mood.  I could definitely associate with that as a teacher and a Christmas junkie.

The Christmas season starts warming up for me when September rolls in.  The first day of September is the opener of dove season, which is the opening of hunting season, which correlates with the harvest, which is the precursor to Christmas.  Simple.

So I spend September thinking about Fall.  When October rolls around the traditions start, like carving the pumpkin, baking pumpkin seeds, changing the foliage around the house from greens to oranges and yellows, purples and scarlets.

Once Halloween is over, the anticipation really starts.  The weather starts to cool and Thanksgiving is on the mind.  School is out extra days for this remembrance, which is always fun.  Deer season comes and goes, usually successfully and the family that is together at Thanksgiving rejoices.  I also don't feel bad about listening to Christmas music at this point either, because the urge has been calling for months now.

When Thanksgiving is finally over, it's all Christmas, all the time.  Everything in my life revolves around Christmas: food, music, tv, movies, shopping, the list goes on and on.

So when Christmas comes and goes, and January arrives, four months of anticipation are over.  I'm left with only cold weather and a desire for next September.