Click, click, clickity, click click…click.  Send.  Next email.  Click, click clickity, click, click….click.  

The clicking hypnotizes me into the drone like state of work, work, work.  The phone rings, a high toned beeping sound that seems to never leave, I swear I can hear the phone ringing even when there is no phone.

Click, click, clickity, click click….click.

Ding, another email, Beep, another voicemail, ping…a new text message.  Clikcity, ding, beep, ping….click.  

A drone…is that what I have become? A slave to the paycheck, working for someone else, the people, always with the people drowning me in noise and clicks, pings, and dings.

Click…Click…Click…

I need to escape.  To find a sanctuary.  A place to recharge.  All the clicking seems to put me off, make me feel uncomfortable, something not quite right.  Too much, its time for a break.

Its quiet now.  Within the river’s embrace.  The sound of the freeway is drowned out by the rapid above me.  Only a mile or so upriver and I have found sanctuary.  A wooded, misty, sanctuary, filled with life and silence.  The moss sops, drenched from the light spring rain, under my feet as I follow a game trail through the trees and underbrush.  A tuft of Elk hair hanging on a low branch catches my eye.  I pull the hair from the stick…would be just enough for a dancing caddis dry.  I continue through the woods.  I can hear geese overhead, and the sound of birds dancing and bathing in the light rain.  The sound of raindrops on dry leaves…pip, pip, pip pip pip.

The woods open to a high bank and the river turns a dark shade of green below me.  I find a place to cross upstream, the river cold, clear, and crisp.  I wet my hands and shudder against the coolness.  A duck startles upriver as I make my way across the current.

The rain falls slightly, its faint sound filling the silence…dip dip dip dip dip.  I find a tree and rest beneath its branches and enjoy a smoke while watching the river.  I wait for the rain cloud to pass, enjoying the lack of people, and noise.

The river invites me as the rain ceases.  A few casts are unproductive and I work my way upriver.  

A trout rises…

The rod moves through the air taking the line with it…swiff, swiff, swiff.  The guides sing as the cast delivers…zzzing.  The line extends, a breath is released, and the fly lands in position.  

The world is silent.

(There are no people.  Just me…the river…and this elusive trout.  There is no phone ringing, no email dinging, no phone beeping, there is no click, click, clickity, click click…Click.)  

My vision tunnels.  The fly weaves and bobs along the seam.  Time…seems…to slow.  

I see a flash from underneath, a shape rise to the surface, a snout breaks the surface, and the fly disapaears in the fray…

CLICK!

I hear an actual “CLICK” in my head.  I feel something within me Click…into place.  My fly rod bends, the fish introduces itself with a headshake, and the moment begins.  The world returns to my senses, the sound of birds in the trees, the rapids below, the trout slashing the water, and the sound of my reel…

click, click, click….

I release the trout, the moment passed now.  It is as if I am re-aligned, or put right…everything has…clicked…back into place.  

When I leave my sanctuary, the noise of the world returns.  The clicking is that of a keyboard and not of my reel.

Click, Click, Click.

Tamarack