I love fall. It starts with an unmistakable chill, a splash of yellow in the top of a cottonwood, and the sagebrush that looks suddenly more gray than green.
Autumn has come to the mountains. And my heart is glad for it. More than just glad for the change, I am literally filled with joy when I crawl out of bed to find the air cool enough to cause a shiver and send me searching for a sweater. While I make my coffee and breakfast, the smells seem even better than normal. Outside in the crisp air, three deer are roaming through town, coming down from higher country. I wonder what they feel about the approach of winter.
I pause to consider this affect. Growing up, fall was always the best time to be in the woods. Those Kentucky summers were hot and oppressive and akin to bushwhacking in a rain forest. Fall was when I took to the woods to hunt and hike and climb. The humidity dropped, the sky returned to blue, and the leaves started to change. Maybe this sentimental part of me is the root of my joy.
Or maybe, like the deer and bear and squirrels, I am merely affected by a need to thrive before the long winter arrives. Maybe I am in a last ditch effort to squeeze in all that I can while the ground is still bare of snow. I note that my list of things to do before winter arrives has grown longer.
But perhaps it is just my physiology. Maybe my brain and its swirling chemicals react to these signs of fall with the same response some get when looking at a sunset from a sandy beach. I admit that such a scene does nothing for me, but I see the joy in others faces that makes me realize that they are indeed deeply moved by such a display. Beauty, then it seems, is a truly diverse reaction. I can say that the sunset scene is beautiful, but it does not stir the emotion in me like sitting on the shore of a mountain stream watching trout boil the surface of the water.
I get on my little motorbike, all 89cc’s of it, and warm up the engine. It’s a 1970 Honda Trail bike, and she needs a little coaxing in the cold morning air. I’ve got my pack on my back with a book, journal, fishing gear, and some layers. I cruise up the road past the second biggest natural lake in the state of Wyoming and soon find myself flanked by aspen and pine. The aspen are red and orange and yellow. I don’t recall seeing aspen in such variety. Yellow typically dominates. I revel in the cool rush of wind around me as I ride through the warmth of color.
Pulling off into a gravel pull-out, I am walking through willows toward a creek that holds some good pools with some nice trout. There is no-one around. I am quiet because it seems necessary here, like walking into a library or church. I feel the flush of anticipation as I ready my fly-rod. I choose a little dry fly, a parachute adams, fluffy and brown and perfect for this fall day of creek fishing. There are a few bugs swirling in the air above me, and I see occasional falls on the water. Not a full-fledged hatch, but maybe enough.
I choose a spot where I can get in a good cast and reel out some line. A couple quick tosses of the fly through the air to recall the needed rhythm and then I drop the fly into the water just upstream of a couple large boulders where a little line of bubbles marks the edge of an eddy. The fly lands in the current and drifts through this line before curling into the eddy and pausing. There is a moment here where I feel suspended in eternity. My eyes are fixed on one tiny fly on one tiny spot of non-moving water in the stream. I hear the wind whisper through the trees, the subtle chime of the aspen leaves as they quake, the water seeking its path among boulders and sand. The light reflects off the water in a million hues. There is the play of light as those reds and oranges and yellows bounce from tree to running water, reflected through the spray of current, and bend to my eye where my brain flips the image and causes my heart to fill and empty and fill again. And it fills not just with that which gives me physical life, but that which makes me feel alive as well. The spirit swells in me and I feel full from marrow to skin.
Then there is the strike at the top of the water, the ultimate joy of the dry-fly fisherman. The dash of silver and colors that I cannot name that breaks the surface of the water and the spell I was in. Where there was a pause, there is now nothing but movement. I yard back on the rod, feeling the weight of the fish as it dashes for dark cover beneath the boulder. I don’t allow it. Once moved into the current I give a little line, letting the fish dart down stream. But not for long. Soon I cradle him in my hand, a little 10 inch rainbow trout. I let him go, but the feeling remains in my memory.
It is not the size of the fish. It is not even the fishing. It is the bend of light off water, the impossibly blue sky against the yellow glow of a cottonwood. It is the sound of water and the moose that wanders by. It is the crisp cold air moving around me that makes the sunlight feel so warm. It is the smell of sage and mint, the quiet and stillness of dusk. I breathe deep, feeling that filling of spirit in my chest. I am back on the bike, heading for home. When I say I love fall, I hope you know that it is more than just a casual love. More than that, I hope that whatever it is that makes you feel this same way is filling you up, from marrow to skin, right now.
