When All Else Fails, Imagine

As the weather has gotten colder, I have been less eager to venture off to my favorite fishing spots. While I’m not quite ready to hang up the poles for the year, I realize each day that the likelihood of a fishing excursion is getting farther and farther away.

With the change of season and daylight savings time, my sleep patterns have shifted in ways that are odd and unpredictable. It could be my increasing age or the general stress of everyday life (not to mention the state of the world and all of its struggles). Whatever it is, I have been sleeping just 5-7 hours for the past month and I have started doing meditations daily. Sometimes, I use visualization to relax. It is kind of like having a daydream only you close your eyes. I guess it a hybridized version of a daydream and a meditation session. Either way, one of my most prevalent visualization techniques is a morning spent fishing.

Usually, what comes to mind are the mornings on Lake Oscaleta in South Salem, NY. As a waterside resident for 4 years, I was indulged by quiet mornings in the summers – 6:00am sunrise. The water would be calm and a slight steam would be flowing up from it. Some mornings, I would take my rowboat or the kayak and go fishing. With not another soul around and the calm water around me, this now provides amazing visualization imagery for me.

In my visualizations, I can see the steam and the glint of sun slowly rising on the water. I can recall the smell of the lake and its green laden waters – lily pads, leaves, and dark green hues. My favorite spots come to mind. Under large fallen branches or beneath the weeping willows – all of the environments that provide shade in the summer for the breeding largemouth bass. The docks. Wooden. Some are older and antiquated while others are trendy, new, and fiberglass. The floats. My imagination drifts to visions of children jumping, the shrill of their screaming as they plummet off of these tethered rafts.

Docks – these man-made objects that provide convenience for docking boats or dangling feet. They also provide a tranquil environment for some big, sleepy fish. As I coast around the fringes of the lake in my mind, I am able to unravel those experiences as wonderful fishing adventures.

Guess I will do some fishing this winter after all.