Of Fish and Women

I have some good news that I will share in my next update, but for this update I dug out a journal entry I wrote several years back and I hopefully improved it.  I wanted to post something fun that has nothing to do with my problems as of recently.

Sometimes I feel like I have  lived many lives as I have so many diverse memories.  This is a good one for me:

James Brown declared it and Gwen Stefani confirmed it when she sang: “The moment that I step outside / So many reasons / For me to run and hide.” It is a man's world. As women, we often find ourselves tightly holding the hand of a man so that we too can enjoy certain experiences typically reserved for men, such as enjoying the great outdoors. Of course, it's not mandatory that we have a man at our side, but I don't think any woman can argue that we aren't safer with a trustworthy male to see after us. After all, there are creepy people who lurk to harm us, animals that hunt us, and situations where only muscle and brawn can save us.

I believe I was in the fifth grade when I learned it was a scientific fact that by puberty boys were on average physically stronger than us girls and it would remain that way for the entirety of our lives. It was devastating news to me, and it angered me. I had a brother one year older and I had never hesitated to meet his challenges when we would butt heads. Upon learning this my world changed forever and I learned to back down in non-obvious ways to my older brother, now knowing he would eventually mop the floor with me if I didn't. I never let him know of my fear, but from then on it was there.

A lot of times life doesn't seem fair to the physically weaker sex, especially when it comes to exploring nature. If you're a single woman who wishes to venture out into the wilds you will soon realize willing men to act as escorts aren't always to be found, especially if they know they will get nothing in return. Yes, you know what I mean. And don't look that way, because even if you're a guy, you know this is true!

I was lucky one summer to have the friendship of a lesbian who like me, loved to fish. But I just enjoy being around natural water. Take me sailing, fishing or snorkeling, there is nothing more freeing than enjoying untamed nature. Water can't be tamed, though we might think we have control of it with our man-made dams and lakes. But, if you throw a torrential season of thunderstorms onto that, we soon find it's the water that controls us.

But anyway, for one summer, with Jules by my side, I was able to experience what it was like to explore nature as a fisher(wo)man without restrictions. Jules and I would fish after work, late into the evening and often continue into the early morning. We'd trek across fields after dark to find fishing holes. We'd park on the side of roads and sit under bridges. No body of water was off limits if it looked like it might be a good hole for catfish.

There is one excursion that always makes me smile when I think back on it. One of our co-workers hosted an annual mid-summer hog fry, which with my invite we both attended. I remember the sky that day. It was beautiful, vast and blue accented with fluffy, dreamy clouds. We were sitting under a shade tree exchanging stories with various acquaintances and on the front porch were about six men--three with fiddles, three with guitars--strumming, stringing, and singing western songs that brought me memories of my grandfather.

Everyone knew Jules and I were close, and together, I felt there wasn't anything that the two of us couldn't conquer. I'll admit, sometimes that facet of our friendship could cause us to find ourselves in some tricky situations, but it was never dull and it was almost always fun. One of the best elements of my friendship with Jules was that together we were impulsive, and at around 5 pm while everyone was just settling in for an evening of music and drinking the urge to go fishing struck us, and we were off to the lake.

We had a favorite spot. We had made various fishing buddies at our favorite spot. In fact, Jules had almost made a boyfriend at this spot but she ended up refusing him. I think she enjoyed the game. We had sat through rain and whole nights at this spot, and it was known by anyone who frequented the area that this was our spot. Fortunately, on this night it was also vacant so we unloaded the car, packed everything on our bodies, made our way down the steep, rocky banks of our cove and eventually found ourselves seated quietly with our poles toward the water enjoying the sounds of the outdoors. Julie was by nature a loud, sometimes obnoxious gal, but when we were fishing, she became quiet.

As the sun began to set, I felt a small nudge and a hard pull. I yanked my pole and began reeling. I told Jules it was a big one. She hustled to the edge of the water for an informal meet and greet with our feisty catch. When he came splashing ashore she wrestled him in and ended up on top of him. I ran to her with the stringer and it took both of us to get control of the situation. He was not a happy cat and he let his anger and strength be known. By his size it was obvious he had spent years avoiding this fate. We estimated he weighed between 12 and 15 pounds. His head was large enough to put a whole hand in his mouth, which Jules did, becoming surprised when he clamped down. The excitement adrenalized us and we settled back in for what was sure to be an active night.

For the next three hours we didn’t catch a thing. To appease her restlessness Jules would break the silence to comment on how big “Junior” was and she would visualize how she was going to catch his sister. And all this time she had been drinking beer.

I had known early into our friendship that Jules more than liked her beer. Since I was driving I had quit early on. But now it had gotten dark and cold. The night wind was drying my sinuses and the alcohol from earlier seemed to only be adding to my discomfort. I decided to go to the store to get us something to eat along with a Pepsi for myself. I also wanted to get the jacket and rain slicker out of the car to keep us warm.

When I returned I could tell that she had reached her alcohol limit because everything she said was getting on my nerves. I just sat quiet, sipping my Pepsi--until she tangled her line into my line, a rookie mistake a more sober Jules would not have made. She was also sitting too close to me. She started to stand up to get us untangled, but she never made it to an erect position. Instead, I watched her crumble down into the large rocks of our steep bank, her body rolling into two open beers (neither was mine), the tackle bag and my Pepsi. I think I cursed at her as she was struggling and wallowing in the beer and Pepsi mess just below me, trying to get her bearings about her.

When she finally got settled back in, she cracked open another beer. “You really think you need that?” I asked.

“Nope,” she answered. She poured it out and asked if that made me feel better, to which I replied in the affirmative. But it didn’t make me feel better. My Pepsi was gone and my rain slicker, which she was wearing, was muddy and smelled of mixed drinks.

Around 11 pm I told her I was packing it up. After we got everything to the car I went back down to the water to fetch Junior, who had been actively thrashing and threatening us the whole time. I pulled him from his home and passed him up the bank to my friend. As I was crawling up I heard a noise and looked up in time to see the backside of Jules rapidly descending upon me. I put my hands up to stop her, catching her rear, and she kept struggling to get back up like a trucks tires stuck in mud.

I told her to hand me Junior but she ignored me and kept trying to climb with him. I grabbed the back of her jacket and said a bit more sternly, “Give me my damn fish.” I snatched the stringer from her hands and climbed up past her. If she had fallen back into the water I thought I wouldn't have turned around for her. At least, at that moment I liked thinking I wouldn't have. It was a fun thought, even if I knew it lacked truth.

Once we had everything packed I put Junior on the pavement and backed the car up to turn on the headlights. We shot some pictures with him and then I filleted him as Jules quietly watched. On most occasions we filleted our catches as a team, but I think she was starting to sober up and had enough sense to know it was time to let me have my space.

On the drive back to the city I stopped at a convenience store for a better cleaning than the lake water offered. The scent of fish guts on my hands was more than I could bare. Jules obediently followed me inside and purchased a fountain drink while she waited her turn for the restroom.

As I was digging for change to pay for my fountain drink I noticed the clerk looking at Jules standing behind me and I smiled. I’m sure we were a beautiful sight. My pants were wet from the knees down, my tennis shoes were soaked and untied, my long hair was a mess from the wind; my sweater was striped, but the shirt underneath was plaid, and I had fish scales in my eyebrows (from the shad). Jules wasn't fairing any better: she smelled like a brewery and adorned mud all over her pants from rolling in soda and beer, her hair was disheveled as well, the raincoat she wore was in same condition as her pants and she wore shiny gold hoop earrings that didn’t make sense compared to the rest of her. But when you took the sum parts of us and made them whole? We were both damn satisfied.

Jules has since moved to Florida, and I'm sure she's enjoying catching even bigger fish out there, but I'll never forget her and the summer she taught me how to live freely, despite the obstacles that women must overcome to enjoy that freedom. Sure, she had her imperfections, but hers were a lot easier to swallow than the sexist judgments often bestowed on us by the opposite sex. From her I learned diamonds are not a girl's best friend. Lesbians are.