Skip to main content

Watching The Smoke Rise

There came a point where all of the things that I was once passionate about didn't matter anymore. My mind was filled with negative thoughts, and I could not bring myself to be happy. I didn't want to fish , because all the quiet time gave my mind the freedom to ruminate on things, and I would sink even deeper into despair. I no longer wanted to hunt because, truthfully, I didn't know if I could trust myself in the woods with a loaded gun. I hated myself, and everything about me.

My dear wife took the weight of my infirmity on her shoulders. She kept me from completely giving up when I really wanted to. At her request, I finally sought help, and within a few weeks, I started to feel some better. Although I was making progress, I was still hesitant to do things that had brought me so much pleasure before. The strangest feeling of fear and dread would come over me when I would think about my life and what was waiting for me up around the next bend. I know all of this sounds crazy, but if you've ever been there, you know what I'm talking about.

Then, one August afternoon, the fog lifted for a few moments, and I knew exactly what I had to do. I told my wife I would help her pack our things, and I made a phone call to the KOA above Travelers Rest and reserved a tent site. I opened up my storage shed and pulled out our tent and air-mattresses. I found our Coleman lantern and an extra bottle of propane and loaded it all in the back of our car. For the first time in months, I had a sense of purpose.

We unpacked the car and went to work, setting up the tent and getting a fire going for supper. After we ate, my wife and kids and I sat by the fire and watched the flames dance as they consumed the hickory and oak pieces, sending up sparks and a plume of smoke into the canopy of giant hardwoods.

The flame had lulled me into some sort of a trance, and I could feel the smoke washing over me. I felt the smoke begin to draw out of me all of my suffering and sorrow and carry it away, up into the clear night sky. I felt my heart slow and everything within me grew still.

After the fire was out, we crawled into the tent and I unzipped the fly overhead so that I could see the stars through an open spot in the treetops above. I could still smell the woodsmoke and felt the soft breeze drifting in through the open sash. That night, I slept better than I had in months. I had finally found some peace.

Comments

  1. AnonymousFebruary 25, 2017 at 2:45 AM

    Thankful to the good Lord for that trip.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Kindred Spirit

That morning, I paddled the cove, searching around fallen timber and boat docks for bass. The first one I hung into pulled my kayak around like a bathtub toy, even though he was no more than two pounds. I took a good look at the fish, then flipped him back into the tangled mass of brush that I'd pulled him out of. When I paddled back out away from the bank, I saw a man in a red kayak, working the shoreline toward me, although his only fishing rod was upright in the rod holder, and his hands were prodding the rocks, as if he was searching for something. I just watched him, wondering what he was looking for, and then when he pulled up a wad of mono with a Carolina rig attached to it, I knew he was a treasure hunter. He looked to be around 70-- slender and tall with a white goatee and ponytail, earrings and tattoos, a stubby pipe puffing smoke as he paddled on around the bend to find another jewel. When he looked up, I threw up my hand. He took the pipe from his teeth and said, &quo
Post a Comment
Read more

Book Review: The Promise: A Fly Angler's Long Journey Home By Paul A. Cañada

My favorite stories are the ones that give the author depth and serve as a window of insight into a writer's mind. Within the first few pages, it is important for me to develop a connection with the author, less I will quickly lose interest. I don't mean to sound like some type of literary elitist by any stretch– it's just me being honest.  Reading the first chapter in Paul Cañada's new book, The Promise , I felt that connection immediately. Paul tells of his childhood growing up in a military family, having a father in the Air Force, and the moves and re-adjustments that had to be made each time his father received new orders to relocate. I did not grow up in a military family, nor did my family move from place to place, but the relationship between Paul and his dad gripped me from the beginning. For me, this laid the groundwork for what was to come.  As his bio states, Paul Cañada is an award-winning writer and photographer with bylines in dozens of magazi
1 comment
Read more

A Point Through Time

Occasionally, the Earth will give up some of her secrets. If one should be so lucky as to stumble across one of those secrets, it can have a lasting impact on how that individual sees himself, and the world around him. History is not just the past, but our past. On my way to a hunting stand one morning, my headlamp caught a glint of white, protruding from the red clay on the bank that I was crossing. I laid my recurve bow on the ground and took great care digging the point out of the mud, then wiped it off on my shirt tail. The serrated edge was as sharp as the day it was made, long before Europeans set foot in North America. Over the years, I have found several points, each unique, bearing the mark of the one who made it. The smaller ones being bird-points, or true arrowheads, the larger were no doubt spear points, used with an atlatl, a device used to hurl the spear at game, or enemy in time of war. They turn up in field edges after heavy rains, or on old logging roads. Sometimes
Post a Comment
Read more