he who has eyes...

“The desire for safety stands against every noble human endeavor.” -Tacitus

Almost every morning, I wake up just before the sun rises. I put on a pair of long-johns underneath my jeans and an old flannel shirt that my mother gave me back when grunge was a style and not a state of being. Anymore, it’s more of the latter with me. But, it fits me like… well, like an old shirt. And, I like to be in that state. It’s comfortable there and things are old and familiar and not too difficult. Sometimes it seems as if living in the past is the only way that one can live without going crazy.

This fishing thing started a few years ago as part of my morning ritual, something that I think everyone should have and stick to, if for no other reason than to have some structure in a world that can be so chaotic and scary and random — something that can give you a sense of control.

I wake up this early so that I can make my way down Lake Shore Drive while it’s quiet and empty and the city is still wiping the sleep from its eyes. I have a favorite spot — a catch-and-release fishing inlet off of the lake. When my dad was still around, we’d come to a place much like this and he’d show me what it meant to be a man, which to me at the time meant baiting my own hook and learning how to spit right. He even gave me my own fishing rod, which I still use to this day, mostly because it fits me much like my old flannel shirt.

This morning, like every morning, I took out my rod and a styrofoam cup full of soil and worms and walked down to the shoreline — a not-so-beautiful re-enactment of the actual bank of Lake Michigan, complete with the straight concrete wall dropping for several feet before sinking below the surface. For the last several years, this is what I’ve been trained to think of when I think of nature. It’s sad really, but at least my morning ritual gets me slightly in touch with the unpredictability of the wild and an ecosystem so much removed from my own.

I caught a fish almost immediately upon casting my hook downward. And, I don’t mean just a fish — more like the fish. He’s practically the only one I ever get. The same wide- yet almost tired-eyed swimmer with a damaged tail fin and spotted exterior. I’ve been told that he’s probably a brook trout, but I don’t give much thought to that. To me, he’s like an old friend, not something that can or should be fit into some taxonomy.

The spots on his side are unspectacular, if not classically ugly. They’re a sickly green over the top of an even sicklier green in a seemingly random pattern dispersed across his flesh. But to me, they’re beautiful — like a mosaic carefully constructed and intricately laid out. Each of his scales are much smaller than the individual spot, and if any two scales were interchanged, the spotted pattern would be completely distorted and ruined. Each scale is needed for his design. Beautiful.

I imagine there’s probably a story to his damaged tail fin, something he’d tell his family if fish had such things (and could speak, of course). I like to make up my own stories for his scars. Perhaps he got caught on the remains of some sunken freight vessel at the bottom of the lake while chasing a particularly appealing meal or some other attractive she-fish. Wounded by his failure, maybe he just gave up and swam back to the safe recesses of the artificial lake shore.

I think this is when he discovered the catch-and-release inlet. He seems like quite a brilliant fish and has probably figured out the racket of catch-and-release food-procurement. You see, he can get a quick meal and not even have to sacrifice much for it, save for a few brief moments of gasping for his breath and several track marks of old hook-scars on his cheek.

It’s a shame, though. As I said, I catch him almost every morning. It’s like he waits for me, which is probably not so bad given what I think of morning rituals. But, there is this whole world out there in the lake, filled with appealing meals and attractive she-fishes. And, he’s stuck in this place, feeding his addiction to food in the easiest way possible — without taking any risks or even living his life as he should be. He’s resigned to his fate of seeking out the easy life, a life of catch-and-release eating. And, maybe he’s happy; but his eyes do look tired.

I suppose the worm on this rusty hook just fits him like an old flannel shirt.