I haven't been updating the blog very often this season. Partly because I've been so busy but partly because I didn't want to go down a path of sucking readers into what has been an incredibly challenging year for me. These blogs and social media with Instagram and Facebook make life sound so perfect, right? All you see is the grip and grins and hear about how awesome the fishing is or the hunting or how life is just sunshine and roses but the reality is, life can suck. Shit happens and the last year it feels like I have been followed around by a storm cloud like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh only my cloud is a flock of pelicans. You ever see how much poo comes out of a pelican?
I've had to move three times in the last year. The first time was getting kicked out of a house and a family I put my heart and soul into. I've never been hurt so badly. Then two houses I have rented have either been turned into duplexes or sold shortly after moving in. I'm tired of moving. I'm tired of having the rug ripped out from underneath me. The anger consumes me and unfortunately, it has also put a strain on those people that actually care about me and I'm sorry.
About the only time I feel normal is when I'm on the river. The background noise goes away when I'm guiding. I focus on the task at hand and I'm in my element. And I'm good at it. The crazy thing is through all the crap that has gone on around me, when I'm on the water and I'm with clients, calm comes. It's not just the fishing. It's facilitating an experience for someone who really values what we give. I've gotten to a place in guiding where nothing really rattles me, (except maybe 70 year-old Jersey boys getting high at lunch and not being able to get their fly-line out of the boat...it's a long story.) I teach. I coach. I get people to catch fish but mostly I give to strangers all I have in order to make their time on the water an experience that lasts a lifetime. It's given me peace but there has to be more and I've found myself in a place where I need to find that, "more."
For a lot of people that 'more' is their family. They give to their kids. They find joy in seeing their kids grow up and be happy. I don't have that. I thought I had a version of that but I don't anymore. I'm forty-nine years old and that desire or that dream is gone. I have to accept that and it's been really hard. I'm not going to lie. It's the paradox of living the dream, right? I have an amazing life. I get to spend my time on the water. I get paid to float down one of the most beautiful and most productive trout streams in the world. I get to go on golf trips to the desert in the middle of the winter. But all that comes with a cost...
Part of what I love about guiding is that I get to meet some pretty amazing people. A group of guys come out every year and fish with John LaRue and myself. They're psychiatrists. They're world renowned psychiatrists. We've been guiding them for six years now and we've had our challenges but through those challenges, I've personally seen a lot of growth and I've gotten a lot more out of my time with them than just a paycheck. I'm not talking about psychotherapy. It's not like I put a couch in my boat and these guys bust out the pipe and start analyzing. They're just good dudes and they care and they offer support.
This summer, one of the guys couldn't make the trip so we had an odd number. That meant either John or myself had a single angler each of the four days we guided them. The last day, I took the single. Clint and I headed over to the Blackfoot to do a walk-wade fishing trip while John took the other two anglers on the Missouri to float. The wade-fishing can be physically demanding and isn't for everyone but Clint really enjoys getting on the small water and I love the break from floating the Mo. I know it sounds a little selfish but I guide about 115 days on the Missouri and John only guides part-time during the summer and teaches in the winter so he usually offers up those wade-trips to me.
That time of the year in June, water temps high up on the Blackfoot are too cold in the morning for fish to get moving. It usually doesn't happen until late morning and into the afternoon so Clint and I had a couple hours to stop off for breakfast and chat before hitting the river. Clint shared his place in life and what he does for "self-care," which made me think of where I'm at and what I need to do. This idea of self-care...we talked a lot about what that might mean for me.
This isn't a new place for me. When I was twenty-one, I was engaged. When that didn't work out, I became selfish. I was working as a restaurant manager and I hated it. I only did it because I needed to support my fiance and her child so when that relationship ended, I quit managing and got back into music. I lived for MY dreams. I traveled around the world as a guitarist in a musical production. At twenty-seven, I went back to school and graduated with my a degree in sociology. In the summers, I was a camp counselor and even got my life-guarding certification so I could lead groups of teens into the Boundary Waters Canoeing Area Wilderness. I then went to grad school and taught undergraduate classes at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. I taught statistics!! I hated stats too, folks but I pushed myself to be really good at it. And then I moved to Montana to work in the back country with adjudicated youth in a program called Alternative Youth Adventures. That's where my life changed dramatically. That's when I was introduced to fly-fishing. It's when I learned what I was really passionate about and it's when I learned exactly what I wanted to be.
From the first trout I caught on a fly-rod to my first guide-trip was about 5 years. I've been guiding now for 13 seasons. I have my ups and downs and it certainly hasn't been all sunshine and roses but it's the longest career or job I've ever had by a long shot. This process of self-care brought me here. Even though I didn't know exactly what I was doing, it is what I was doing and what I need to get back to now.
So what does this mean for The Montana Dream? I don't know yet. What I know isn't going to happen is I'm not going to get in trouble at for leaving a coffee cup sitting on the counter. I'm also not going to have to argue for days over whether or not to use subway tile in a shower enclosure. If I buy a house and remodel it, there won't be subway tile in the bathroom or the kitchen. It will be my choice and I will do what I want this time. (Sorry about the diversion.)
I also know that I'm going to go to the desert again to golf this winter. That was so awesome last year. I met some great people and got to hang out in short sleeves while it was negative 4 in Montana. I might even go to the Keys for some saltwater fly-fishing. Hell, I might even go all the way to New Zealand to fish and nobody is going to tell me I'm being selfish for wanting to fish on a vacation.
When I worked for Alternative Youth Adventures, we had this guiding principle that went like this: "When you lose yourself in the service of others, you find your 'self'." I still believe in that. In fact, when I look back at all the things I've done while in the self-care mode, most of it was serving others. I'm still going to guide. That's a huge part of who I am and what I can do for others. But I am going to go on this journey for my 'self'.
I always wanted to write a book. I'm going to do that this winter. It's not going to be a book of memoirs because nobody really cares that much about me. It's also not going to be a "how-to" book to fly-fishing. That's already been done way too many times. It will be fiction. I'm going to write a novel and I'm going take you on a ride you'll hopefully never forget.
But right now, I'm still crazy into hunting. In fact, I saw about 100 elk yesterday driving back from the river on the Sieben Flats and they are already bugling and rounding up cows. It's early but it's happening. Archery season doesn't even start until next weekend and seeing that has definitely put me into hunting mode. I hope you join me on the journey.
Keep 'em where they live...
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