When All Else Fails, Fish

11PM on a Tuesday finds me reposed on the love seat staring intermittently at the screen and the fish tank.  The tank needs a bit of work.  The pH is off a bit, and the filter outflow is falling into the water making that tinkle sounds which cause bladder failure….there are diatoms on the glass, and a bit of chewed plant leaves floating in the corner.  But on the whole it looks better than what you see at the dentist’s office.  I have started and stopped a dozen blog entries, none are sticking.  Runners hit the wall. For me the first two paragraphs are work, then once the crest of the hill is achieved, it’s gravity, the idea is there and the words just form themselves. Tonight someone turned off the gravity. 

Typically the fish don’t provide guidance, they just do their thing in their world and in return for food swim to the side of the tank when they see me.    It occurs to me that the fish have a universe defined by glass, perched in my living room. 

Yeah I know not exactly deep original thought here.  This is the mental sawdust from what was heavy thinking in a smoky dorm room best exemplified by Delta House pledge Tom Hulce in Animal House or maybe by the entirety of Douglas Adams trippy Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  None the less I’m stretching for material here…..I just can’t resist.

I have created a replica world for these fish. Fish several hundred generations removed from the parents who were plucked from the jungle river.  It’s not easy. Turns out a slice of River from South America isn’t easy to replicate in a suburban living room this far from the equator.  Iron enriched gravel for the plants indigenous to South America. Lights with specific spectrum on timers to control the intensity and duration of light.  The water is passed thought the filter 6 times an hour, were bacteria eat the ammonium and nitrite and produce nitrate for the plants to eat.  In the filter, peat to soften the water and add the tannic acid found in streams in the Amazon Basin, and specially designed porous ceramic to trap particulates. The water is then pumped through a UV filter, destroying the reproduction cycle of evil microbes and snails, and finally the water is heated to 79 degrees before returning to the tank.  (The water in the tank is clearer than the tap water from which it originated….Kinda Deuce Bigalow) The fish don’t know this, the fish can’t comprehend pumps and timers.  They feel that the water is right, they can see the lights and the plants….they live and die based on the world I created and maintain, but at the same time can’t comprehend it. Biblical.

It’s a fair trade.  I keep their world running and they provide the beauty and the relaxation.  Its voyeuristic but not in a naughty way. You can wrap your mind around it any way you like.  The result is the same, 30 minutes staring at a fish tank, deep in cosmic thought or not thinking at all.  Its just the same. Enjoy.

The Death of Mellow

So we made it, the holidays are behind us.  We survived.  I’m guessing we all ate too many cookies, watched some bad TV, maybe imbibed a little too aggressively, (For the record, never water down sweet booze with vodka, you will regret it, I did.) and got through essentially unscathed.  Now what?  For me I used the time to calm down a bit.  I made a concerted effort to reduce stress and allow the world to slow down.

After the holiday break I resolved myself to the long dark months ahead.  I settled into my office chair, turned on Handel’s Water Music and began working….it was good to be productive again, it was really good to not be thinking about the next week, or the next months, it was just the work, it was a Tuesday.  I managed to stay focused, just began to feel like I had the “now” fully in my grasp and found the rhythm, January was moving by, but it wasn’t flying.  I had little on the Radar and life was percolating nicely.  The world was mellow.

Then, the phone rang.  

The call was short, to the point, and devastating.
 “Hello”
 “Butchy, It’s on!”

I have alluded to this in the past; I’m a person of many nicknames. Butchy is used by those I fish with, some of whom don’t know my first name.  So those three words, “Butchy, It’s on!” told me all I needed to know to completely wreck my peaceful resignation to winter.  I knew with those words a fishing trip was in the works, I was invited, and I would spend the next months consumed with anticipation like a kid with a toy catalog.

The internet abounds with cute phrases, and quotes on the idea of “living in the now” and in the past I have completely disregarded them, or rather chuckled at the naivety.  Really, how can you enjoy the now, if you didn’t plan properly 2 months ago?  Makes sense to me. However, recently I realized that this is a life consuming proposition. You never really get to enjoy the now because there is always something further out to plan, and if there isn’t anything to plan, that’s a whole other worry. This wasn’t really an epiphany, in fact I fought it.  I fought the notion hard, and lost.  Who wants to change a lifetime of perspective?  Can you even begin to change a life time without the crash and burn of rock bottom?

Rock bottom isn’t an option; I’m not riding this ship to visit Davie Jones.  After a taste of the freedom those few days in January allowed, I’m torn between the excitement of anticipation and planning and the mellow resolve of day by day living.  Kids seem to have this figured out.  They have short range Radar that allows them to anticipate ice cream for dessert but the thought of it doesn’t consume their day.  Kids make and lose plans willynilly, fail, cry, and move on.  Adults eat the ice cream and worry about fitting into a bathing suit in three months.  I think about what ice cream flavor to serve 6 months in advance.

There is a balance in there somewhere, just got to find it.

February is almost over.   I can see the idea of Spring lurking around. First we must weather March, with its wind, Green Beer, Ides and all.  Then Birthdays, Trout Season, Hikes, Tie Shirts, 4^th of July, Vacation, Bugs, Sunburn, Poison ivy, Back to School Shopping………..

Still looking for that Balance obviously.