Of Whiffles and Truffles and fanciful things
There's born a love which maturity brings
Of Earth and Rocks and Rivers and such
Without which life wouldn't matter--------Much
Reflections-quoted by permission-
from The View From My Back Porch by T. Foster
Love doesn't happen at once. A
new rod is never loved, it may be appreciated, but
it takes forty years with that fine old rod to
really love it.
A river is never loved after it has only been waded
a few times. That river has to be waded year after
year in all its seasons, often enough so that there
are few secrets or surprises left to discover. A
person almost has to become 'one' with the river to
love it. Real love requires a person to grow old
with the object of his affections.
Love doesn't happen from a distance. One has to rub
against the object; handle the rod, wade the river,
walk in the forest, kiss the girl. Familiarity doesn't
breed contempt, it breeds love. One really loves only
those thing which he has had an almost daily contact
with. Be careful what you handle, you may end up
hopelessly in love with it.
Love has to be constant. It has to be there year after
year. It has to be counted on. That hatch that each
year is so desperately awaited can't fail us, at
least many times, for who is so strong that he can
suffer disappointment after disappointment.
The consistency has to be so strong that it's really
never questioned. Like a good marriage the question
can never be there.
One is stingy with those things he loves. I will loan
my high tech rods but not my old Scientific Angler System 6.
In fact I don't even travel with it. Emotionally it would
be a hard loss to swallow. Rarely do I show the places
I love to others, as their presence may diminish it
in my eyes. Love is a very private thing, too precious
to loose.
With love comes loss. Nothing is constant. Those things
we love sometimes just are not forever. The rod breaks,
the forest is diminished, the river suffers, the wife
leaves. Maybe that is why in our later years we try to
preserve those things we love, knowing that their loss
is inevitable but still trying to maintain the consistency
we depended on for the last decades of our life. Who wants
to be left alone without the things he loved?
Everyone cries about his loss, and each in his own
way is probably sincere. I wonder about those who
failed to protect those things they loved, and yet
decry their loss. Maybe they just never loved those
things enough. With love comes commitment, not just
for the short term but for the long haul.
I don't think I have ever heard loss expressed better
than Fosters comments on the loss of a love.
For she's gone and never coming back
and that fact
makes the brightest winters day
black
Guard those things of Earth and Stone and Rivers well
and maybe you will never feel such a sense of loss. ~ Old Rupe
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