It’s the first day of the week or the last day of the weekend depending upon your point of view. Most Sundays, I wake up and think of all the things I didn’t finish in the last six days. Today, it rained in Toledo, a light steady rain, enough to keep the lawn green and the plants in bloom. The sun came out in the afternoon, in a clear blue sky sprinkled with wispy clouds. After church, I made a list. But the list changed and shifted during the day. First, we tore out the floors in most of the house, (to be replaced with tile). Not a difficult job but messy. Next, Sunday dinner: chicken, tater tot casserole, a salad. Then, writing. But that shifted as well. I decided at seven p.m. that writing would have to wait until another day. I will write the stories I have to tell. Yet not today, a pleasant first Sunday in October.

Alone, I’m standing on the banks of a trout stream pre-dawn. Perfect stillness surrounds me. I cross one of numerous footbridges onto an island, waiting and watching the water. A slap and a ripple tells me something is watching me back. On the farm across the road, a rooster calls out its cock-a-doodle-doo to its family. I have never fished for trout, as we were raised fishing in Lake Erie and occasionally the other Great Lakes. I wish I could stay here and observe a fly-fisherman, but my day calls me to other things.

I turn and cross the footbridge, walking up the dewy hill slowly. As I head back into my room, I wait and watch for a moment longer, imagining what it is like to fly-fish. Maybe one day I’ll know. For now, I’ll just savor the pre-dawn memory. https://www.rockwellspringstroutclub.com