Adventure #3: Part 3 The Spirit on the Lake

Peering over the railing of the dock we concluded that these two frogs were indeed mating, and even though they floated completely motionlessly, were also not dead or dying.  But we also noted that there was a line or string of some sort that seemed to be tangled around the female’s leg and went long deep into the water.  From the distance we were at it appeared to be algae covered fish line.  And then suddenly the two of them plummeted to the bottom and we thought they were drowning from the snag.

Brianna was on it.

“Be the hero!” I encouraged.

She cast out her lure to try to snag the line and free the poor frogs from nature’s bane. 

Every time she thought she had it snagged it seemed to disappear.  “It’s like it’s disintegrating,” she kept saying, puzzled.  And then finally… she got it!  We were so excited to save the frogs from…

The so called line had broken and a piece of it was hanging from her lure.  I looked at it closely and in horrifying realization I cried, “Those are EGGS!”  She cried out too of course and immediately freed the string of eggs from the hook and threw them back into the water. 

We felt pretty damn stupid and horrible that in our effort to save nature, we just totally interfered with the life cycle of frogs and possibly killed about a hundred potential tadpoles.  There’s a reason they lay hundreds of eggs.  Many of those tadpoles will get eaten, and even in adult hood will be preyed upon by bass and birds and all of the other predators in a lake.  


Man, did we just kill those chances for the few survivors to make it into maturity and procreate like these two managed to do. 
For Pete's sake.... 

We laughed about this for quite a while, mocking everything we said up until the moment we realized it was a string of eggs.  “Be the hero!”  Bahaha!  “It’s like it’s disintegrating.”  Bahaha! 

OH. Brother....

But it was a wonderful moment in its own way.  The spirit of needing to help a life form that could very well be deemed insignificant to others was ever present.  And it gave us a story to tell that made us laugh together.  It was a memory made that I know her mother would appreciate. 

 As Brianna was sitting up on the dock railing, and after she re-freed the eggs back into the water, I took a picture of her. 

I don’t know if other people feel a strange haunting from certain photographs like I do, but this turned out to be one of those photographs.  When I got home that evening and uploaded the pictures of our day, I stopped short on this one.  I stared at it with an overwhelming emotion. 

It sometimes feels like I’m looking on a past that hasn’t become a past yet.  I imagined ten years from now, twenty even.  I thought of all the old photographs that Brianna went through after her mother died, pulling out pictures of her mom from when her mom was young, pictures of her mother fishing, and I thought: Brianna’s children are going to look back on this picture someday and see that their mother had joy in her life.  They’re going to see a mother who suffered tragedy and managed to keep breathing and living.  I can’t explain how some photographs haunt me, but they do, and this one did profoundly.  There was more than an image captured in this photograph.  It stopped time entirely and preserved an exact moment of goodness that will forever be. 

The sun rose higher as the hours crept on and the sky was jay blue.  We were successful catching quite a few decent sized sunnies, Brianna catching the largest, a nice seven inch. 

We probably pulled in over thirty sunfish. 

I have been fishing several times at this spot since this day, and have not caught nearly as many.  Even though I can see schools of them in the water, they have not been biting like they did that day.

Throughout the day people came and left.  We took funny videos of our sunfish.  We ate snacks and soaked in the hot, hot sun.  We watched the snapping turtle come and go as he hoped for worm treats, and saw eagles soar over the water.   

Before the city of Plymouth was settled by a Frenchman named Antoine LeCounte, the Dakota tribe inhabited this area.  Medicine Lake, the heart of Plymouth, is just around the bend from Parker’s.  Medicine Lake was named by the Dakotas, but in their language the name of the lake was Mdewakanton, which means “Lake of the Spirit”.  A warrior lost his life in a canoe on that lake, his body never recovered, and it is said that Mdewakanton was named after him. 

The Dakota believe that one must gain a spirit power, a force of nature that is mysterious unto itself, a force that will connect you with greater things.  They believe it is obtained through certain people, or even animals or certain places. 

I believe that there is a constant power governed by energy that can be obtained in the human spirit of good things, beauty, appreciation and a healthy environment.  There is always energy.  There are places on this grand planet that are more potent than others, true, and then there are places potent to only certain passersby.  I know Parker’s Lake doesn’t have the energy that the Grand Canyon does, for example.  But there is a force on this land that is familiar, comforting, awe-inspiring and mystical.  It is full of life. It is full of history and ghosts and wildness. 

I don’t know how to define spirit for you, Reader.  It might be an energy we generate from our own whimsical desires.  It might be energy left behind from beings that once lived.  It might be our own emotional reactions to beauty and the nature of good things.  However you define “spirit”, there was spirit on the lake that day.  I still feel it when I go there, especially in the early morning hours when it is just me and the wild life around it.  But that day that Brianna needed to mend from a hard week of grief, the spirit was strong.  There was an energy that was especially kind to us, whether it was from an otherworldly source or from the aura of love between two friends, it was ever present. 

I love my friend Brianna.  Her mother will forever be proud of her two daughters and the amazing women they have grown into, and the strength they have obtained on their own.  This blog post is dedicated to a phenomenal, devoted, strong mother who raised two amazing daughters who will go on and give that same energy and spirit back into the world. 

She, was the spirit on the lake that day.  

  

Adventure #3: Part 2 The Spirit on the Lake

Brianna and I agreed that the next time we fish we go straight to Parker’s Lake.  So that is what we did.  We agreed to meet there early in the morn.  I arrived at 6:30.  The sun was glittering low on the water, and the morning was chilly but comforting with the promise of warming up.  Brianna had a later start than I did, so she didn’t arrive until 7:30.

As I waited for her I chose to just fish for sunnies until she got there.  After proof that there are descent sized fish in the lake, I went lure shopping before this trip.  I got myself some Power Bait rubber worms and spinner bait and I was anxious to use them, but I knew that if I caught a whopper I’d want someone to a) take a picture damn it, and b) help me get it on the dock.  I’ll be honest, I was scared to pull in a huge fish alone.   

I had the dock to myself for only about fifteen minutes.  Three teenage boys came onto the dock around 6:45.  I said hi to one of them who returned a “hi”, but the other two wouldn’t make eye contact with me.  (Must be because I come off scary).

When Brianna showed up around 7:30, I switched to a spinner bait.  A one dollar Wal-Mart spinner bait, mind you.  If you don’t know what a spinner bait is…. Here’s a picture of the one I used:

Allow me to preface all this with a brief history of my prized catches throughout my life.  It isn’t very impressive compared to other anglers, and compared to the amazing fishing that Minnesota has to offer.  New York has good fishing, but you really need to know where to go. 

So, in my childhood career of catching fish, here is the list of “whoppers” I’ve pulled in (including my out of state ocean fishing as well):  two flounder, two baby sharks (probably 14 inches and one pound), one ten inch trout, one three pound largemouth (which won me a fishing pole in a kid fishing contest) and…. Nope. That’s it.  I’ve caught about a thousand sunnies, bluegill, small crappies, and perch in my childhood though!  But that was the extent of it.  My brother Kyle was the true fisher in our family.  He went on some good fishing trips and has caught some good sized fish.  I wanted to be just like him when I was little, and I remember saving up my allowances to go spend on a ritzy five dollar lure to add to my tackle box in the hopes that I could catch big fish too.  I never had the patience for lures as a kid though, but quite ironically had the patience using worms.  Worms caught fish, guaranteed, though small as they were I just wanted to catch fish.  I always caught the most fish, but never the biggest.  But I will say this: I used a worm on all of the “big” ones I caught, even the sharks…  

Here's a picture of my GIANT shark.  I'm not in the picture (and I don't know why), but I pulled that in.  I think my dad took it off the hook though, so that's why he's holding it. 

Now, out here in Minnesota childhood fishing is not like it was for me.  There’s five year olds out here pulling in sixteen inch Northern pike and giant walleyes all the time.  So… it has become a goal for me to catch up to these five year olds. 

I have three goals:

To catch at least one of each of the following fish:

a Northern pike

   






                                                                             a walleye

and a largemouth bigger than the one I caught at age eight

So, now that you know my pathetic history of catching not-that-big-of-fish in my childhood, I was stoked this particular day with the opportunity to add new fish to my list.  Parker’s Lake is at an all-time high in numbers of Northern pike this year.  And clearly there’s some nice sized largemouth.  As for walleye?  I have no idea.  Still have to figure out how to catch one of those...  But I was definitely excited for the pike and bass.

So when Brianna arrived I switched to the spinner bait.  My ritzy one dollar lure.  The one teenage boy who had said hi to me was fishing on the other side of the dock while his buddies were elsewhere.  Brianna was catching sunnies while I was casting out closer to shore.  It only took a few casts before this wonderful Northern jumped out of the water and grabbed my lure.  My first pike!  If you’ve never been fishing you really don’t know the adrenaline rush that goes through your body when you’ve got a good sized fish.  And pike are super fun to catch because they put up a good fight.  And you respect that. 

I can’t remember if I was screaming too obnoxiously or not, but I was definitely squealing on some level.  I got it up on the dock and bossed Brianna into grabbing the camera.  “It’s my first pike!” I cried.  The teenager on the other end was watching silently. Bri couldn’t find my camera, so she used her phone.

 It wasn’t a very big pike.  And in this picture I look like I'm choking it to death.
Thirteen, fourteen inches?  They’re very long, thin fish so that’s not a very big one.  I’m angry with myself for not measuring it…. I was too focused on getting the hook out of its mouth without getting bit (their teeth are razor sharp) and getting it back into the water so it could live.  

The thrill of this woke up my whole spirit, my whole body.  I couldn’t wait to catch another.  But more importantly, I couldn’t wait to share the good news with my dad and my brother Kyle.  They were all I thought about.  I thought about all of those fishing trips as a child, how my dad taught me how to fish and how determined I was when I was little to do it myself.  I thought about how Kyle and I talked fishing all the time, how he taught me about lures and how which ones are for which kinds of fish.  I know all about bass fishing because of him.  It might sound sort of simple and ridiculous to some, but this was a special moment for me. 

Shortly after this, Brianna noticed that the teenage boy switched his lure to a spinner bait and she came over to whisper to me, “He just changed his lure to the lure you were using” and for some reason we got a kick out of that.  When you think about it though, a huge percentage, not all of it, but a huge percentage of fishing is dumb luck.  Know-how will up your chances no doubt, but a lot of the time it’s all up to those damn fish and what they feel like biting at.

It wasn’t long after I caught my pike that Brianna pulled in a nice sized crappie.   Another fish I wish we had measured, but if I had to guess it was at least twelve inches.  The air was feeling good.  Spectacular.  The lake took a liking to us.   

I had my second stroke of luck shortly after this.  I switched to a Power Bait rubber worm and was fishing directly out in front of the dock.  I was just starting to get bored of casting when I got a hit.  A big one.  My pole was bent so far I thought it would break.  In my adrenaline rush and excitement I started yelling to Brianna again to get the camera but she was in the middle of pulling in a sunfish.  I reeled too quickly.  I was just too damned excited!  I managed to pull this second pike up to the dock water, but it jumped up and thrashed and flung itself off the hook. 

“Noooooo!” I cried out to it in sorrowful longing as it swam back into the deep.  This one?  Was no fourteen incher.  I remember when I saw its mouth fly out of the water I had a split second thought of, “Oh crap I have to take a hook out of THAT?”  This was a whopper of a fish that got away. 

The thrill now, of course, was starting to become addicting.  I had to have that feeling of excitement again. 

The day went on with a rising sun that began to give us color on our skin. 

The teenage boys left after a while, and we had the dock to ourselves for a bit.  Brianna wanted to catch a bigger fish so she switched to lures as well.  She had brought with her a tackle box that she had as a child, a nice one, and it was bright pink.  She had made a comment to me saying, “I know it’s girly, but…” 

Now she and I are avid feminists, and one of the sexist things I can’t stand is to use the word “girly” in an inferior, demeaning, shameful way. In fact it was one of the first feminist’s things I brought up with her when we first met.  She was telling me a story about her and her friends and she was sounding apologetic for being “girly”.  I had looked at her and said, “What the hell is wrong with being girly?  There’s nothing wrong with girls liking the things they like.  It’s a double standard for men to use the word ‘girly’ as demeaning and inferior, but at the same time…what?  Do they want their women to be manly?”  I also told her that when I was her age I used to throw out the word “girly” in the same way.  I used to be proud that I wasn’t “girly” which meant in the sexist context of “irrational, pink loving, vain ridiculous creature”.  It took me awhile to figure out why I battled with my self-worth, growing up hearing these seemingly innocent phrases and implications that women are inferior and silly.  Once I finally pinpointed how phrases like “cry like a girl” and “stop being a little bitch” (man saying to a man) and “good thing you’re not a girly-girl” were so destructive, I’ve started to make some noise about it.

So, when Brianna was apologizing for her pink tackle box, which is a kick ass tackle box by the way, and a spirit of her childhood, I said, “There’s nothing wrong with being girly.”  She laughed this AH-HA! I REMEMBER! laugh and said, “Yes!”  I might not be a fan of the color pink in general, but that doesn’t mean I’m not girly.  I’m girly.  I’m a freaking girl.   My voice goes up an octave when I’m talking to a man I’m attracted to.  I like to wear skirts.  I totally want my hair to look pretty.  And in all my girly wonderfulness I am intelligent, talented, rational, passionate and emotional, empathetic, efficient, hard-working, independent, strong willed, tough, funny and weird. Hell yeah I’m proud to be girly.  I mean…I’m chock full of ugly flaws too but even those are part of who I am, and even if you want to call those flaws “girly” instead of “human”, I still own them as part of my humanity not the delusional inferiority to men.   

So… in this magnificent, magical pink tackle box was a frog lure. 

Brianna went to try it close to shore in the weeds.  She ended up discovering two real frogs in the water, pretty good sized ones, enjoying some procreating pleasure.  She beckoned me to come see, so I came over to have a look.  Before I let you see the picture of the frogs I have to tell you our story.  Do not judge.  We meant well.  Keep that in mind.  We meant well.  And it testifies what the spirit of a good natured heart can do for a memory. 

(stay tuned for Part 3)

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) 

Adventure #2: Part 2 Ice Fishing for the First Time

Meeting new friends in your adult years means they have no idea who you were in a past life.  They take what they know of you at first meeting and go with it.  For quite a while I was known as the “artsy city girl” and many of my new friends had no idea that I ride horses and love fishing and camping.  Funny how that is… I do admit that I’m secretly layered and private.  I’m hard to get to know.  I could not be more grateful for the friends who have pushed through to find out what I’m really about.  I unintentionally make them work hard to find out, so I’m grateful for the ones who believe I’m more than that quiet girl who seems a little weird.  You find out that I’m not that quiet, and more than just a little weird.  And they still like me. 

The two friends who took me ice fishing have been troopers in this quest to break down my walls and make me feel loved.  They let me be me.  There’s nobody else I would’ve enjoyed this trip with more than them. 

I spent the night at Maddy’s Friday night (and the whole weekend, if you must know, because my car was in the shop).  Maddy, Katie and I went grocery shopping, picked up ingredients for fajitas and had our night of feasting and drinking whiskey before our big day.  I woke up the next morning not feeling so great.  Not because of the whiskey but because my throat was so sore I couldn’t talk.  But I’ve done harder things being far sicker than this, so I wasn’t going to back out.

Maddy pulled out the first camo outfit I’ve ever slid into (if you don’t count that punky camo skirt I used to own): a fabulous winter jumper to keep me nice and toasty.  We packed up snacks, booze, poles and ourselves into the car and we were off.

We headed up north to Rush Lake where the thickness of the ice was reported at seventeen inches.  This is the recommended thickness for driving on the ice, so that was the plan.  We were going to drive out on the ice and pitch a tent.  And they were going to let me do the driving.  

Fighting the sludge of the oncoming virus I was about to suffer greatly from, we picked up our bait and my day fishing license and headed for the lake.  Maddy drove out onto the ice at first and instantly I could feel the difference beneath me, the difference of driving on solid ground to solid water.  I watched as she took off her seatbelt and then told me to do the same.  It took me a minute to realize why: oh right!  If the ice breaks and the car goes down, we can’t be strapped in… She also cracked the windows for safety.  I told myself, “These are just precautions…better to be safe than sorry…it doesn’t mean there’s a big chance you’ll actually end up in the bottom of a lake, Jess…”  I’m grateful that I was with wise people who take the risks seriously, and aren’t idiots about the forces of nature.  There’s always a chance nature can swallow you up.  Respect it, and be as safe as possible.

After a little ways out they asked if I’d like to drive.  Yes!  I had to get the whole experience.  So we switched seats and I drove across the frozen lake, something I never in a million years thought I would be doing when I first moved out here at the age of fifteen.  It was a strange feeling.  Being behind the wheel I could feel the ice beneath me even more intense than I could in the passenger seat.  Katie then says to me, “So Jess.  Do you realize that there’s thirty feet of water beneath you?”  I sort of squealed at that (for a lack of a better description of my reaction) and we all laughed about it.  I’m not going to lie: it was a little terrifying.  But it was also exhilarating and fantastic. 

We decided on a good spot.  I parked the car.  Katie pulled out the auger (the ice drill) and began making holes out on the ice. 

Maddy pulled out the Vexlar (the nifty device that detects fish activity) and began testing the holes. 

There’s no way in hell I would’ve known to do this had I ever attempted to do this solo.  I was grateful to be with experts. 

They found our magic spot and continued to make camp.  Katie pulled out the pop-up fish tent and I felt sort of helpless at first not knowing how to contribute.  I eventually had a job to do and helped anchor it down. 

I was unbelievably impressed with the design of the tent, how it unfolds quite gracefully and pops up into this magnificent little house.  Fighting the wind is truly the largest challenge.  We were about to be blown clean off the lake. 

After the tent was secure, Katie let me drill two holes in the tent.  I was a bit of a weakling with it (the auger is pretty much as tall as I am), but I managed to drill two holes without breaking anything or completely flooding the tent.  I only flooded it a little…   No super embarrassments, which is usually a root cause of my anxiety: oh my god, I’m going to make a fool of myself.  But I think I did okay. I looked real sporting in my daisy hat, and my sunglasses at my chin.

We were each set up with two holes, a pole in each.  We were using minnows and just fishing for pan fish.  I was told I had to bait my hook.  Not a problem.  I’ve been putting worms on hooks since I was six.  I’m good.  So, I reached into the ice cold water of our minnow pond and pulled out a slippery, nearly brainless fish and hooked it onto my hook.  It was a weird feeling at first because I felt cruel sticking a hook into a living thing.  I was so sensitive as a child, I thought to myself, “You had no problem doing this to worms as a kid, Jess, get over it…”  The truth of it is, minnows don’t really seem to die.  These little shits stay alive with a giant metal hook through their body, forever.  I got over it. 

The Vexlar was next to one of my holes and it took a little bit to understand the readings on it, but I learned soon enough.  Once I realized which color coded bar on the monitor was my bait, I understood that the other color bars coming near my colored bar were fish.  It was pretty radical. 

Once settled on our bucket seats, lines in the water, portable heater going, we waited.  As anyone knows, fishing is a sport of patience. It is why when people do it together they are "forced" to socialize and bond.  AKA drink and eat snacks and talk about life.  So that is what we did.  We poured ourselves cocktails, ate chips and talked about things too personal to put here in public.  I was feeling a low grade fever coming on and my throat still ached painfully, so I wasn’t as lively as I usually am after a bit of whiskey.  I remember being quite self-conscious about that.  I think I was more terrified of being boring than falling through the ice, which by the way moans ominously as it pops and moves whilst releasing air. 

It didn’t take too long before the first fish and I was (thrilled to say) the lucky pole.  I caught a decent size crappy.   It was weird though… Fish swimming in icy waters are a lot slower than what I’m used to.  At first I didn’t think I even had a fish on my line because it was so easy to reel it in, so I stopped reeling for a minute as my brain was like, “No, you lost it.”  But cold fish don’t move so much, so I was wrong.  I definitely had a fish on my line. 

The rest of the day was quite successful.  Katie often kindly let me pull in some of her fish.  Maddy caught the largest crappy out of all of us.  Katie caught the most.  And we stayed in our cozy, wind resistant, warm tent until sundown.  One of the things I have to point out about staying on a frozen lake in a tent for hours on end, there’s only two ways for women to empty their bladders.  Either you step outside into the frigid, biting wind and drop your drawers in front of other fisher people, or you pee in a bucket in your tent and then dump it outside.  We opted for the pee bucket.  Between all the times I’ve gone camping and to outdoor concerts, I’ve done my share of peeing outside.  But I can’t remember ever peeing in a bucket in front of friends and dumping it outside.  So, now I have.  I have gone ice fishing and peed in a bucket. 

We packed up and headed out at sundown.  On the drive home is when the virus in my body started to hit hard.  My temperature was going up, my legs felt like jelly and the coughing was getting worse.  By the time we got back to Maddy’s I declined quickly.  Her and her friends were going out to the bar later, but I crawled into bed feeling like death.  I was so grateful that I was at least functioning enough earlier in the day to enjoy my trip.  But by the time I was in bed I was having fever dreams, I couldn’t breathe and I wanted nothing more than a sedative to put me under.  So I popped some melatonin and waited for the magic. 

That being said, I was sick for about a week and it threw off my ability to get this entry down right after the adventure.  And then more time passed…and then more time passed… So to wrap this up:

I accomplished a few simple things I never would’ve accomplished if I hadn’t had good friends who care about me.  I drove on a frozen lake.  I drilled holes without embarrassing myself.  I ice fished.  I peed in a bucket.  All things I never thought I’d do.  Never take the love in friendships for granted.  They make your life.  As simple as the adventures may seem to some, doing anything in life means you are living it.   

Adventure #2: Part 1 Ice Fishing for the First Time

I moved to Florida when I was twenty one because the cold in Minnesota was so unbearable I thought I would lose my mind if I stayed.  The fact that I live, now, back here is essentially a testament of how much I love my friends.  I stay in the tundra of Minnesota hell winters because I love my friends.  And that is a fact.

My parents moved us to Minnesota from New York in 1995.  I was turning sixteen.  Our first winter here was a frozen hell I will never forget.  New Yorkers know cold.  We know snow. TONS of snow.  But the cold that is here in Minnesota?  No. We did not know this sort of cold.  Never in our life had we gotten a school closing because wind chills were literally seventy below zero, until we moved here.  You think you can run out and turn on your car without wearing gloves?  Think again.  You will get frost bite. That is, if the damn thing will even start.  When it is that cold, and you step outside, not only is every ounce of revealed skin completely assaulted with icy knives, but your lungs feel like you've plunged into water and smoke.  It literally takes a few seconds to find oxygen.  You do not understand this dry cold unless you have experienced it yourself.  Take my word for it, it sucks ass. 

That first winter, bless our luck, broke a lot of records in both cold and snow.  It was our first time having horses on our own property, and we had to adapt when the pipes in the barn froze.  I would have to dress in snow pants, a vest, a jacket, thick waterproof gloves, a ski mask, a hat, a scarf, and water proof boots to feed and water the horses.  Because the pipes froze, I carried hot water from the house down to the barn every day that first winter.  I filled up four 3 gallon buckets of hot water from the basement laundry room, carried them upstairs and out into a giant Rubbermaid wheel barrow, and wheeled the water down to the barn in below zero weather.  Angry over losing my whole life in New York, this was a lot more traumatic than it should’ve been.  I cursed the cold like I would curse Satan himself.  Like, literally yelled into the dead of night air and often cried.  I tried to stay positive and thankful, but that damn cold was like a devil that stole my life and my soul and I hated it with such tenacity.  It is very strange for me to look back at that time and remember no joy, no happiness.  Just absolute grief, anger and depression.  I couldn’t blame anyone, so I blamed the damn cold. 

I grew up fishing, so that is not a new thing for me.  But never in my life have I trekked out into the middle of a giant frozen lake, drilled a hole and dropped a line.  New Yorkers ice fish, but let me tell you it is not nearly as big of a thing as it is out here.  For one, there’s not ten thousand lakes to freeze in New York.  For two, the Finger Lakes in New York are insanely deep (like 3-400 feet deep) and those suckers, at least the ones in my area, rarely if ever freeze over.  There are smaller lakes that do, and that is where most New Yorkers spend their ice fishing, but I never in my life saw a vehicle out on a frozen lake until I moved to Minnesota. 

That first year we were here we watched a handful of news reports showing four wheelers, snowmobiles and trucks that had gone through the ice and disappeared into lakes across the state.  Our first natural reaction was: These people are bleeping crazy.  To some it sounds comical, but there are deaths every winter.  This is not a sport for the faint of heart.  For the most part, the people that go through the ice are driving where they shouldn’t be driving, or driving too late in the season when that seventeen inch ice has now melted to ten.  There are precautions and smart rules to follow in this game, but there is always a risk.  I will tell you now Reader that I am glad I have done my research after my adventure instead of before, because the material I’m reading right now as I’m working on this entry is unsettling and alarming.

So in my hate of cold and ice, and my judgement on those who lost their vehicles to the powers of nature, I never in a million years would’ve predicted that I would someday embrace this insanity and be one of those people in the dead of a Minnesota winter driving across a frozen lake…

Farm House - A Valentine Entry

Love in Minnesota.... I should post something on Valentines, shouldn't I?  Because of technical difficulties this entry was not posted on Valentines.  But... Here it is.  This is my interpretation of the sort of Valentine love I hope for. Cheers to all those who have it.  Cheers to all those who hope for it.  Cheers to all those who want world peace instead.  Cheers.

Farm House

Somewhere there’s an old farm house full of ghosts who want me to live with them, and I can’t wait to come home to it.

I’m not sure what my future holds.  I drive a car that is undoubtedly a curse and a punishment, and I live pay check to pay check wondering when I’m going to have to sell my soul to the devil to pay my debts.  I’m better off than I used to be, but I wonder if I’m ever going to come home to a house, come home to a lover and best friend, come home to a place that doesn’t feel like a box of demons and solitude.  I keep writing in hopes that I can sell myself on the corner with my talent and succeed in attaining the normal contentment that most people know but take for granted.  You can only work your day job for so long...

I know I’m a little unorthodox in most areas of my life, but my domestic love language just wants to cook food and make people happy with it. I want to fry up pancakes for that man I wake up with.  That is such a simple request to the universe, but it’s hard to see it as a reality.  No pancakes for you, love.  Sorry.  Just a box of demons and solitude. 

There is an element of myself that seems to scream at contenders, “GO AWAY!” I’m apparently not good at this.  I try to be humble and tell myself I’m just ugly.  But the not so humble part of myself says, “They’re too shallow or stupid to get it.” 

I want that farm house.  I want the iron skillet and the wood stove.  I want a dining table that seats twelve people.  I want my kids to have a tire swing and a clothes line.  I want to hang bottles from a tree and see ghosts in the kitchen.  I want to make love in an old bed that squeaks while the dawn of the day spreads its spring glory on our wooden floor.  I want quilts.  I want the door knobs to be over a hundred years old, and I want the staircase to be so steep that you have to be careful walking down it.  I want rooms that make no sense, and I want a backyard full of summer sun and sweet memories that make me cry. 

I do not know why this is important to me, but it is.  It is frivolous in its own right.  I have a good life.  I am grateful for all the healthy things in my life and my spoiled treasures and luxuries.  But I can’t stop dreaming about my farm house and how all my voids could be filled if I could only cook pancakes on a wood stove for a man that I love for life.      

Adventure #1: Crazy Keeps You Young

I definitely didn’t imagine this being my first adventure, but the beauty of life is in its simple unpredictability.  Friendships are not always chosen, but rather you fall into them and if they are good you keep them.  I fell into friendship with someone back in high school, and the goodness has kept us afloat throughout the years.

I quite frequently visit my friend Barb on weekends, and every hour and fifteen minute drive up to her house is worth the shenanigans.  She lives with her boyfriend, Tony, and three children who have all adopted me as family and have given me a reason to stay in the forsaken tundra of Minnesota.  We have our differences, but all of my friends are different than me, and the differences are what bring color and challenge and adventure into my life.  When you have someone who has your back and genuinely cares about your happiness, you keep them.

I had just returned from visiting New York over the holidays, my hometown and past life lingering in my soul as I tried to re-adapt to Minnesota.  Every time I go home to New York I experience a strange haunting of my childhood that follows me back to Minnesota in a wisp of a ghost that takes a while to evaporate.  Either I was overwhelmed by my travels or I picked up the stomach bug that was nailing literally everyone in my life, I got sick.  I was still trying to recover when I decided to push through and go see Barb last Saturday anyway.  Even though I continued to be sick Sunday morning, it was totally worth it. 

Human beings are marvelous creatures.  We are aware that boredom and the mundane are a threat to our survival, and if we don’t do something drastic to entertain ourselves we potentially fall in spirit.  I forever embrace anything that keeps my spirit from falling, as crazy as those things might seem to those who have more elite options of amusement.  Hence the following adventure:

After the kiddos were sound asleep we tried to figure out something to do to entertain ourselves.  Often we pull out board games and pour drinks and take stupid pictures and have plenty of laughs, but none of us were feeling up to that this particular evening.  As a joke, Tony presented the idea of running around the house barefoot in the snow.  We’ve had an amazingly warm winter so far, but the arctic forces had finally cruised our way and the temperature this evening was eight below zero with a wind chill so cold it could crystalize your facial hair in two seconds.  Running barefoot in the snow seemed like the most stupid thing in the world to do.

It turned into a sort of dare, which turned into a “Well I could do it down the road and back, where there’s street lights and there’s not snow up to my ankles…”  I, at first, was very “Mommy would say you’ll get frost bite!” kind of attitude.  I was terrified of getting frost bite…  But the more we joked, and the more we talked, and the more we were prodded we realized that it actually might be an exhilarating thing to do.  I had put out that I needed motivation, like, “Give me a hundred bucks, and I’ll do it” sort of thing.  But then the idea of video-taping the insanity came up, and I’m a show-off who will do almost anything in front of a video camera… So as pride was tested, and show-offs were challenged, we gave the greenlight.

The challenge: hat-less, glove-less, sock and shoe-less, run to the end of the short road and back again.  I say “short” relatively… 

The door opened.  The hot air from inside steamed up our exit as it hit the subzero air outside, and we plunged into the dark, artic air in screams and laughter.  I wish I could say I thought of interesting things as I ran down the road, like sentimental, beautiful things that would flower up this story, but truth be told all I thought about was, “This is stupid!  My feet are on fire!  Frost bite!”  The pain was both excruciating and exhilarating.  Half way back to the house I didn’t think I could make it, my feet were in so much pain.  But then the daunting reality hit me that: You can’t stop.  You HAVE to run home.  And that is what sent the adrenaline pumping so fiercely as if I was being chased by a bear, and I ran like a lunatic, like a child who was pretending to run from an evil wizard, like I was an actress escaping an alien invasion… It. Was.  Awesome.

Back in the house our feet were in so much pain it made us laugh maniacally.  As we thawed out, as the pain ceased, we found that our feet felt extraordinarily relaxed.  It was awesome.  It felt like someone had given my feet an hour foot massage.  No frost bite.  Not even a freezer burn…  We were fine, and exhilarated, and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed. 

When you find good friends, you keep them.  Especially when they can keep your spirit from falling.