My Wrinkle in Time: My Memoirs . . . and a river runs thru!
As I write, I am much older now. My pen is Tenkara, an ancient Japanese-easy way to stalk my elusive trout. A Tenkara fishing pole is typically 16 feet with but a tiny tiny whisp at the tip and telescopes down to a handy 14 inches. It has no reel but will reach out 25 feet into a medium size trout stream. If you put the bait right in front of the trout’s nose, they can’t resist. I throw them what looks like a piece of cheese. Remember if you remain calm; the fish will remain calm. It’ a game we play, the fish and I, of catch and release. “The tug is the drug.”
As I gingerly wade into the coldness, the serene mountain stream hypnotizes my senses as it swirls around my crinkly hip waders, smoothing out mirro-like. Looking down at my reflection, I don’t recognize that old man. Who is he? It can’t be me? Why I’m somewhere around forty or perhaps fifty, still young at heart! Seventy? Why, bring it! Bring on another day another challenge. What sordid adventure does eighty promise? Does my journey lie behind me, perhaps not? A trout rises in my setting sun.
Yet Who? Who am I really? I am. I am but a compilation of my dreams and memories and stories. A lone lonely soul, pensive in my winter. My life behind me for the most part. I am nothing, yet I am all of it and for that I am nostalgic. Oh but why? Why can I not stop time as it rapidly hurls me through the roar of the downstream rapids, toward my abyss! My brain is swilling, grasping for a twig to rite myself, or is it my pen/twig to write myself, wondering just what lies ahead, what is in store for me - now old. Where did life go?
What shall be, my last story. Hum? Shall I write it now? I shall, for “Once there was a boy, his name was Tommy . . .” It’s me and my story. I shall revive me before I go – yes the me in me. And I shall share it. Where am I and how did I get here? Yes! Who, what, where, why, how? When did I become me? Yes, I will start there, in the beginning and it will be me, and… “and a river runs through.”