Reverential Calm

Nothing but the rain. One particular solo camping trip, 20 miles up the Little Cimarron, an area that appears as a blank space on any map. My goal was just to get above the beaver ponds, where the native cut-throat trout lived in very cold water. Pitched camp above 10,000 feet, a small tent and my mummy bag, a fire pit with a stainless steel refrigerator rack resting on four rocks. My supplies were a baby-food jar of bacon fat and a lemon, I always carry salt and pepper. It was a miserable early spring, spitting snow, but the starving fish would rise to a blank hook. I shot a squirrel, for dinner the first night, and tied some streamers from his tail hairs. For a period of time, an hour or more, during the hatch of some fly I couldn't identify, I caught a fish on every cast. It rained the whole time, holding steady at 34 degrees. I had pitched the tent to take advantage of the fire-pit, cozy, as I remember, and I'd go out several times a day with a great little seven-foot bamboo fly-rod and a very light leader and catch what I needed in terms of sustenance. I was depressed at the time, considering suicide, so I guess you'd bookmark that time. Actually, it wasn't that big a deal, you either choose to live or not. What happens for me is that a calm settles and I realize I'd rather live. I'd rather see Kori's butt than not. Simple diagnostic. There's a yellow flower, under foot right now, that I can't identify, and it drives me crazy that I don't know what family it belongs to. I thought I knew my yellow flowers. I have a degree in yellow flowers, but the rain drowns out any reason. I had brought the sheep-watering trough inside, so it could heat-up, come to room temperature, and it's raining so hard I pour ten gallons of water into the trough and put the buckets back outside. A surplus of water. I'm not used to being this clean. Nothing prepares you. Easy enough to slough something off, but what you consider to be the core might matter. Early this morning the rain switched over to snow, and by noon there was four inches and still coming down. Not in the forecast. By mid-afternoon it's a whiteout, visibility down to a couple of hundred yards. Very beautiful, but not very welcome this time of year. Two crows are the only thing I see all day. They look miserable, but they always look pretty ratty. Six inches and counting. I'd better go, sure to lose power.