The old people, the old cultures, knew something about consequence that the new ones don't. (p. 8)
What the old ones really knew in their bones was that death exists, that all life eates and kills to eat, that all lives end, that energy goes on. They knew that humans are
participants, not spectators. Their work and play and rituals affirmed and reinforced
this knowledge. (p. 9)
Still, I had hoped we might grow a different kind of culture here. Doing what, exactly? Maybe living with and in, not "off" or beside, the land and its creatures. Christians kill predators. The echt-Greenie thinks he or she kills nothing, and is delude. Better to eat and respect. Consequence. Those who avoid or deny those choices think evolution, or God, got it wrong. I don't. (p. 13)
Of course, Bodio stabs his pen to the gritty essence of things, while my previous ramblings were vague and unconvincing. Yet, here it is: consequence. I must confess that I have read this essay before, a bit more than two years ago. Last night, however, the words unfurled rather surprisingly and I could only nod and smile knowingly. Why? For the past twelve months I've been living, breathing, thinking consequence. My previous post's ramblings were nothing more than a spontaneous exercise in "thinking out loud" that anyone who knows me,
knows too well.
This month of August, my wife and I, our children and family will mourn the one year anniversary of the death of our dear little Ezra. Consequence is on my mind, in my bowels; the soles upon which I walk and the blood coursing through these veins. Fuck the well-wishers, well-doers, their goddamn explanations and pathetic condolences. I find a great comfort in the knowledge that Life is dynamic yet frail. By clawing, grasping and hanging on with our very tissues, veins and fingernails can we experience its riches with the full knowledge that at some unknowing moment it will slip through us, through everything we have to cling with, it will dissolve and fade into mystery leaving us gaping, gasping, ragged, bloody, knowing all is as it should be. And peace. Acceptance. A depth of center. A love for the way things are.
I want to share a vivid memory of consequence, not quite as profound as the loss of an infant, but one that reminds me of him, because he was there, if not quite there, yet:
I ripped open the sleeping bag, tore through the tent -- ignored the shoes. Keys. Truck. Driving, bouncing, lurching in the sand. Where are my glasses? Salt spray on the windshield. No sign of the two track, must have washed with the tide or lost in the pre-dawn grey. Where are my fucking glasses?
There it is! Like a shrine to the gods of oil and shit, there it stood, blue molded plastic and signature odor. A Honey Bucket never looked so inviting! Once relieved (and greatly relieved I didn't relieve myself in the truck or outside the tent within view and smell of dozens of neighbors) I drove back to the tent.
There was no one on the river. The clock read four a.m. I was surprised. Five hours ago there were fifty fisherman on this stretch of the river, most were probably snoring away their booze. I rigged my rod and headed down to the waters edge. This was the Anchor River on the southern edge of the Kenai Peninsula. A small river, wadable at almost every point, it welcomed a strong run of native and hatchery kings every spring. What the fishery lacked in the sheer size of its fish (a very large Anchor king would be considered puny on the more famous rivers to the north) it made up in charm and intimacy. The local fisherman were the meat kind and friendly. The river gave up its secrets (and migratory denizens) with trusting ease. It was all wonderful, and only open to fishing a handful of weekends a year, to allow the bulk of the run free, unmolested access to its rich breeding grounds. Which is why I was surprised no one was fishing.
I paused, the river at my feet, the cold Cook Inlet lapping the sand a hundred yards to my rear. The sun was coming around (it never fully leaves this time of year) and the gulls and eagles were warming and on the wing. I dropped my rod and began to wade up river to where I could see it. I knew instantly what it was and what it meant. It wasn't the first and would not be the last. A total of three, actually, that I would stamp my card with this season. A fish, a small King, a hen full of eggs. She was struggling in the riffle just above my favorite hole, on her side, then righted and pumping, then sideways, washed down on her side again, then up and fighting again. She was dead, but refused to relinquish those primordial urges to swim, always upstream, to fight, to spawn. It is written in her DNA. It is coded in her tiny brain, exactly how is still a mystery to science. But it is there and it urges her on. She will not make it.
Last weekend I found another hen, exactly like this one, in this riffle, and spent an hour trying to revive her. It was futile, but I tried and tried, gently, desperately. In the end I walked back to camp with her, not squared and proud like usual, not this one. I walked with my head down, with work to do. I filleted her and sent her rich, nutrient rich carcass back to the gulls and eagles. This time I did not even try.
Both of these fish had been caught before, that is how they got this way. On the Anchor an individual is allowed to keep one fish per day, then he or she must stop fishing. Many anglers, myself included, who hook a salmon they do not wish to keep, simply release them back into the water and continue to fish, quite legally. Many anglers release fish that they have no business releasing, fish they played too hard, hooked too deep, fish that would not survive.
Bodio, in the same essay, "Stuck with Consequence," wrote, "Releasing a trout still leaves a mark on the river" (1998, p. 14). In this case, it left a mark on me. My family and I ate that fish. We nourished from it, enjoyed it, used it, and for a time, quite literally, we were that fish. And still are.
I was done fishing that day, for at four a.m. I marked my card and filleted my fish. The following day, however, I caught my own. A shining bright hen, chrome, firm. I reached my fingers into the gills of this fish and pulled sharp and hard. Her blood, crimson mercury in your hand, turned water to wine, a miracle of life, and death just a part of it all. Bled out, I walked her to the fire, where new friends, full of life and fish and beer and sweat, had thrown in an iron skillet. Butter, salt, pepper, fillet, and just a splash of soy sauce. She burned our mouths, our blood, our guts. Our minds were drunk with hot salmon, fresh, steam like smoke from this consumation of life and death and living and loving.
I remember her, she meant something. Raw life, unadorned, unadulterated, pure, essential, passing from one to another, everchanging, always the same.
knows too well.
This month of August, my wife and I, our children and family will mourn the one year anniversary of the death of our dear little Ezra. Consequence is on my mind, in my bowels; the soles upon which I walk and the blood coursing through these veins. Fuck the well-wishers, well-doers, their goddamn explanations and pathetic condolences. I find a great comfort in the knowledge that Life is dynamic yet frail. By clawing, grasping and hanging on with our very tissues, veins and fingernails can we experience its riches with the full knowledge that at some unknowing moment it will slip through us, through everything we have to cling with, it will dissolve and fade into mystery leaving us gaping, gasping, ragged, bloody, knowing all is as it should be. And peace. Acceptance. A depth of center. A love for the way things are.
I want to share a vivid memory of consequence, not quite as profound as the loss of an infant, but one that reminds me of him, because he was there, if not quite there, yet:
I ripped open the sleeping bag, tore through the tent -- ignored the shoes. Keys. Truck. Driving, bouncing, lurching in the sand. Where are my glasses? Salt spray on the windshield. No sign of the two track, must have washed with the tide or lost in the pre-dawn grey. Where are my fucking glasses?
There it is! Like a shrine to the gods of oil and shit, there it stood, blue molded plastic and signature odor. A Honey Bucket never looked so inviting! Once relieved (and greatly relieved I didn't relieve myself in the truck or outside the tent within view and smell of dozens of neighbors) I drove back to the tent.
There was no one on the river. The clock read four a.m. I was surprised. Five hours ago there were fifty fisherman on this stretch of the river, most were probably snoring away their booze. I rigged my rod and headed down to the waters edge. This was the Anchor River on the southern edge of the Kenai Peninsula. A small river, wadable at almost every point, it welcomed a strong run of native and hatchery kings every spring. What the fishery lacked in the sheer size of its fish (a very large Anchor king would be considered puny on the more famous rivers to the north) it made up in charm and intimacy. The local fisherman were the meat kind and friendly. The river gave up its secrets (and migratory denizens) with trusting ease. It was all wonderful, and only open to fishing a handful of weekends a year, to allow the bulk of the run free, unmolested access to its rich breeding grounds. Which is why I was surprised no one was fishing.
I paused, the river at my feet, the cold Cook Inlet lapping the sand a hundred yards to my rear. The sun was coming around (it never fully leaves this time of year) and the gulls and eagles were warming and on the wing. I dropped my rod and began to wade up river to where I could see it. I knew instantly what it was and what it meant. It wasn't the first and would not be the last. A total of three, actually, that I would stamp my card with this season. A fish, a small King, a hen full of eggs. She was struggling in the riffle just above my favorite hole, on her side, then righted and pumping, then sideways, washed down on her side again, then up and fighting again. She was dead, but refused to relinquish those primordial urges to swim, always upstream, to fight, to spawn. It is written in her DNA. It is coded in her tiny brain, exactly how is still a mystery to science. But it is there and it urges her on. She will not make it.
Last weekend I found another hen, exactly like this one, in this riffle, and spent an hour trying to revive her. It was futile, but I tried and tried, gently, desperately. In the end I walked back to camp with her, not squared and proud like usual, not this one. I walked with my head down, with work to do. I filleted her and sent her rich, nutrient rich carcass back to the gulls and eagles. This time I did not even try.
Both of these fish had been caught before, that is how they got this way. On the Anchor an individual is allowed to keep one fish per day, then he or she must stop fishing. Many anglers, myself included, who hook a salmon they do not wish to keep, simply release them back into the water and continue to fish, quite legally. Many anglers release fish that they have no business releasing, fish they played too hard, hooked too deep, fish that would not survive.
Bodio, in the same essay, "Stuck with Consequence," wrote, "Releasing a trout still leaves a mark on the river" (1998, p. 14). In this case, it left a mark on me. My family and I ate that fish. We nourished from it, enjoyed it, used it, and for a time, quite literally, we were that fish. And still are.
I was done fishing that day, for at four a.m. I marked my card and filleted my fish. The following day, however, I caught my own. A shining bright hen, chrome, firm. I reached my fingers into the gills of this fish and pulled sharp and hard. Her blood, crimson mercury in your hand, turned water to wine, a miracle of life, and death just a part of it all. Bled out, I walked her to the fire, where new friends, full of life and fish and beer and sweat, had thrown in an iron skillet. Butter, salt, pepper, fillet, and just a splash of soy sauce. She burned our mouths, our blood, our guts. Our minds were drunk with hot salmon, fresh, steam like smoke from this consumation of life and death and living and loving.
I remember her, she meant something. Raw life, unadorned, unadulterated, pure, essential, passing from one to another, everchanging, always the same.
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