The Last Sunrise.

This morning I paddled and fished under my summer’s last sunrise.  I will have students back in front of me tomorrow, and I just couldn’t bear to spend my last day of summer planning and prepping. Instead, I decided to do what I love, the thing that calms my soul, and refreshes my mind.  While I loaded up, I was quickly convinced that one last paddle and fish was needed to get my mind in order to be prepared for another 9 grueling months of shaping young minds.  I simply had to go fishing, if not only for me,  I was doing it for them. I popped right up when the alarm sounded.  I doubt it will be so easy tomorrow though.   It was wet and very cloudy.  The river and sky seemed darkly ominous but quietly inviting.  Darkness was winning when I pushed off, and the sun stayed hidden as it began to rise behind a gray blanket.   Steam poured from the balmy water.  I paddled into the mist looking for clues to the morning and beyond.  I relished the smooth cadence of my paddle and breath and I was compelled to paddle on.  I didn’t stop until an hour and a half later when I reached the next bridge.  I lost myself in the mists and the eddies and the songs of the birds.  I was completely satisfied and had not even made a cast. Life and the smell of the river pulsed through my soul.    As the current pulled, I was spinning, and sweating, and wondered for only a second what to throw.  There was no question about it.  There had been no rises, but a man knows his own heart when it aches to see a rise and feel the pull of a beast on a secret recipe of steel and fur and feather.  I knew the one, the one that I tied up last night.  I recounted my dreams of the pike and bass and all the places they lived in my very own dream stream.  It was the perfect river and had healthy fish behind every log and in all the seams.  I wasn’t sure where I was headed when I left home this morning but something pulled me here.  Everything felt right in my world. And I knew this was the right place for my last sunrise.