Little that matters to humans matters in the world of a tarpon, and most people that fish for them understand this. RIGHT “Tarpon might be the only non-shark fish in the sea that can make you jump when you stumble across one underwater. I found this one on one of the few shore dives in the Lower Keys. It seemed equally as curious about me as I was about it, which allowed me to explore lighting and composition as we swam around.” Photo: Ian Wilson-Navarro WHAT IT MEANS TO BREATHE I will rise in the morning ready to face the sun. We could sit and sip our cafecito slowly between the disposable mask tucked beneath the chin. We could call it apocalyptic, beautiful or both. Little that mat-ters to humans matters in the world of a tarpon, and most people that fish for them understand this, but it doesn’t make sense to them, necessarily. The gravity of exactly what we are doing can never be felt because we are not living in their world. We will never live in their world and there is a lot to learn from that. Today we are tarpon fishing, so I wrote a list of beautiful things on a napkin and proceeded to throw it away. I did the exer-cise and called it Gratitude , but in retrospect, I should have called it Expectations . toasted bread calm day burping tarpon the first sip of coffee sweating Bullet points, a blueprint for something wild. A list, if you will, of palpable things that make me feel un-controllably human. Frederick draws on a nonalcoholic Busch cardboard box with pencils, a sign that we are trying very hard to stay straight. We are drinking cof-fee like addicts because we are. A runny egg at Stout’s, and enough time zooming through Google Maps to draw our own, but we settle up and get ready to leave. There is a plan today to not have a plan. We are run-ning in circles with our heads cut off. There have been times in my life when I have tried coming up for air from the things that turn me astray, and there are times when I have resisted air as a self-deprecating exercise. We all know the feeling of aban-donment, and as hard as we might try to never abandon what we love, or used to love, it will always happen. Things change. Some people tell me they are coming up for air, but I think they are coming up to laugh. I think they are romantics themselves, hopelessly following their nose down south every year, knowing people like us will try their best to intercept them with a hook in the beak. The clear blue soup crashes ashore, and we are do-ing the same thing people have done for years but feel as though we are doing it differently. How it changes your perspective to try something new to you. I tied the same fly every day for months and was confused when the tarpon I was looking for spat it out like a stubborn toddler in a high chair, refusing to let it go down easy. I have never been able to quantify the heartbeat, but when it is practically thumping on the floor, it is easy to do. We ask questions not begging for answers, but to put words of hope into the air, to be part of it. Not for the sake of the words, but for the sake of curiosity, wondering why and how the world and its creatures do what they do. The mystery still amazes me. There is proof of a God, and it is about as wide as a concrete pole, swimming away from me after an errant cast over the port side of its body. There are days when my brain convinces me that I am taking up space, that I am better off dead. On days like this, I’m sure glad I’m not. Today I am the king of myself, the king of the voices inside my head telling me a life worth living is impossible to find. I found it, looking inside the pupil of a tarpon. 082 MARATHON
The Flyfish Journal The Flyfish Journal 13.4: Page 82
