Friday, April 18, 2014

Another Springtime

Here in Northern Virginia, Spring is moving slowly.  Its mid-April and by and large blooms are just now reaching their peak; the forest is still bare and grey and only the very tops of the trees are leafing out.  If you look West as you drive down 95 South, the treetops seems to shimmer in the light.

It has been a rough winter.  Phrases like "hardest winter in 20 years" get thrown a lot, but I don't put too much stock in that.  Seems every winter is the hardest winter in some number of years when viewed from the vantage point of Spring.  That said, it was a difficult one for me personally: I graduated from the Infantry Officer's Course in March.  There is no way to describe my IOC experience without resorting to cliche and tired old descriptors so I'll just point out that my class started with 107 and ended with 68; the highest attrition rate in the history of the Institution.  That I wasn't one of the 39 who didn't make it has little to do with my personal merits or effort.  All I can say is that I got through it.  Standing on the other side, I'm not quite sure how.

That's all to say that here in mid-April I find myself feeling a lot like the forest looks: not quite recovered from the winter.

Fishing is the cure, and to my surprise I have been catching stocked brook trout in the Chopawamsic!  The State of Virginia stocks them while the water is cool enough, and even though I feel a bit silly releasing stocked trout into water that will shortly be too warm to keep them alive, I am grateful for each encounter.

With each tug on the line and bend in the rod I feel myself getting a little closer to Springtime.
 

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