Adventure #3: Part 1 The Spirit on the Lake

There’s a fragility to life that only those who have lost tragically fully understand.  This post is firstly dedicated to my dear friend’s mother who recently passed away too young, and is overall dedicated to all those who have suffered a loss and still fight the grief thereafter.  There is healing over time as they say, but during that time there is a great pursuit to survive the pain while it is still so sharp in the soul.  This day was about easing the present pain so that the next day, and the next day after that, could bring promise of good things, the hope that the pain will someday not be so sharp and stabbing and suffocating.  

The day before my ice fishing adventure was the day I went to my friend’s mother’s funeral. 

I met Brianna at a daycare where I used to work.  She was hired at the age of sixteen to be my teacher aid, and I judged her instantly (the sour old bitty that I am). She was lively and chipper and quite honestly, way too happy and pretty, and it sort of wigged me out. 

I’m not that chipper. 

And my experience with chipper people usually (not always) equates to fake. I was a little terrified that we wouldn’t get along.  She seemed like such an unlikely match, meaning she seemed like the type of girl who didn’t like me in high school, and not the type of teenager that I could trust to be reliable in the classroom. 

She’s laughing as she reads this, trust me…  If you must know, her first impression of me was that I was scary.  We both unfortunately give off false vibes about who we truly are until you get to know us.  Judging really is a stupid thing. 

She proved me wrong in every way.  I felt like a fool as she proved herself to be hard working, reliable, fun, creative and on top of that, kind and generous and one of the best aids I’ve ever had.  Our chemistry became paramount.  As a team we worked flawlessly in the classroom.  She’s an extremely talented make-up artist, and this is where we connected the most: with art. Passion. The hunger to change things unjust, and the drive to be successful. 

She turned out to be one of my soul mates. 

Age difference be damned, this girl has given me so much light in my life and when you find that sort of compatibility with another human being you keep it healthy and moving along.  She has become a dear, dear friend. 

She is twenty years old now, and tragically lost her mother only a few months ago.  

Grief is a torment that proves how powerfully we need love.  Grief is a testament of that love.  Grief is painful and slow to heal, and many who have not experienced it underestimate its power on how it can change your life forever.  There is both an ugliness and a beauty to grief that paints the perfect portrait of human complexity:  it can feel like it is destroying you, while at the same time driving you into a fierce desire to live fully in the name of the one you lost.  As Brianna (and her younger sister) are falling into the darkness of this strange canvas, my heart has broken in the wake of their new reality. 

As the weather has crept in with warmth and sun and green leaves I told myself that this would be the summer I would finally purchase my own fishing gear and get back out into nature.  I grew up fishing, but have only fished a handful of times in my adult life.  I love to fish.  So I’ve felt like an idiot for not doing this sooner.  But I have finally got myself up and out, and I have been fishing almost every weekend for the past few weeks.  It has been unbelievably liberating and has opened a window of healing fresh air into my soul. 

About two weeks ago I let Brianna know I was going fishing again and hoped she could join me.  She joined me a few days before (a precursor adventure I’ll share too), but this invitation was more dire.  She had been having a hard time both with grief and other stresses that have piled on her back, and she said to me, “Yes!  Yes.  I NEED to go.  I NEED this.” 

Weeks ago, in my first time out to fish after buying my gear, I spent a couple hours hunting for the perfect lake.  Third time’s the charm as they say.  It was the third lake I found that has become my magic spot.  Parker’s Lake in Plymouth is now my permanent go-to.  The dock is just right. 

The quantity and size of fish is excellent.  It’s only twenty minutes away.  It’s quiet, serene, full of wildness, and the sun rises right up over the water in front of you.  I’ve seen bald eagles hunt and catch pike. 

There’s duck families and geese families, king fishers, pileated wood peckers, heron, egrets, loon and about a hundred other species of bird I don’t recognize. 

If there’s a reason for me to love Minnesota, this is it.  The wildness of this state is pretty awesome. 

The first time Brianna came with me fishing was my second time fishing, and for kicks I wanted to see what other lakes are out there.  Stupid to do when you’ve already found a good match.  So, we went to White Bear Lake. 

Bad idea.

There’s only one dock for offshore fishing, and when we finally found the dock (an hour after driving around the entire city of White Bear) it was loaded with people.  I looked at Brianna and said, “I really want something more private.  This feels wrong.”  She agreed.  So after two hours of driving around White Bear Lake, Beaver Lake and some other lake I can’t remember the name of, we decided to go to my spot in Plymouth.  Which, was an hour away from where we were. 

So our plan to fish at the crack of dawn didn’t work out. 

When we arrived at Parker’s Lake there were a couple people on the dock, so we settled into a little offshore clearing.  It appears to be a perfect spot for bass if you can handle fishing in the weeds, but we started out just fishing with worms and catching sunfish. 

Brianna sat herself on the bank of the water to fish trying to get the bit of sun that was coming in through that window of the shore when she noticed a particular creepy looking insect meandering through the dirt next to her.  Startled by its size and ugliness, she leapt up screaming, “WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!”  It was a bizarre looking creature, no doubt, and to defend itself it stuck its pointy rear end straight up into the air and stood as tall as it could on its six legs.  It was about two inches in length, the color of the dirt, with two big round eyes and a triangular head.  Its body looked very larva like, so I assumed it was a baby something or other.   After some ridiculous close eyeing and leaping back I observed the shape of its head and theorized that it was a baby dragonfly.  Brianna looked it up on her phone (the magic of technology) and sure enough it was a dragonfly larva.  Being the nature nerd that I am, I was fascinated by its camouflage. She was too.

We saw a second one also, so clearly they had recently hatched by the shore.  Because they were so invisible in the dirt we had no idea how many there were crawling around us.  Trying to be responsible we scooped the one up on a stick and moved it out of harm’s way so we wouldn’t trample it.  This was our first testament of our nurturing, life-saving spirit.  The second testament turns out to be the real spirit of the story which comes later.

After a bit we craved to get some real sun, so we headed off to the dock, people be damned.  We caught plenty of sunfish, some decent size, but nothing too exciting. 

Nothing real exciting happened until after noon when this kid, about thirteen, came out onto the dock.  He fished for about fifteen minutes and caught a four to five pound largemouth bass.  Everyone on the dock was cheering for him and I swear acted more excited than he did.  I think he was overwhelmed, quiet and shy.  The rest of us however were whooping with congratulations. He tried to take a selfie with his fish and Brianna stepped up and said, “I’ll take that picture for you!”  So she took the picture and he quite humbly released his prize catch back into the water.  It was warming to me to experience the unity of something so simple.  Everyone was so genuinely excited for him, and it became a moment for all. 

Our next trip, the main event in this post, was the real day of adventures, first time catches and of a goodness that was so undeniably needed.  A spirit came out to us on the lake that day…

(stay tuned for part 2)